School fees nightmare for parents amid crash programme

Parents will feel the pinch of paying fees over eight school terms in the next two years when learners undertake a crash programme designed to recover the 2020 academic year that was lost to the Covid-19 shutdown.

Face mask and sanitisers will also stretch family budgets further until a vaccine or cure for the deadly virus is found, adding to the economic woes facing parents with the re-opening of schools on January 4 next year.

Kenyan parents are used to paying fees over three annual school terms, but the special calendar announced on Monday by the Ministry of Education will squeeze in an additional term every year in 2021 and 2022 as the government seeks to save students from repeating classes. 

The re-opening plans announced on Monday indicate that the Education ministry has pushed the cost of complying with Covid-19 health protocols to the parents, who may also have to equip schools with the required hand washing points. 

“Participants may have to come up with additional finances, staff (teaching and non-teaching staff), learning rooms, ICT infrastructure, sustainable supply of running water and sanitisers and sanitising facilities,” a training module developed the Ministry of Education reads.

To ease the anticipated financial burden, a parents’ lobby has signalled it will petition government to increase the free primary and secondary school cash allocation and negotiate a grace period for settling of fees arrears. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has battered the economy by enforcing shutdowns and restricting movements, resulting in closure of millions of SMEs, massive job losses and employee salary cuts. 

Besides the school fees burden, parents ordinarily buy new school uniforms and stationery for their children at the opening of every school term.

Additionally, they will be required to spend more to ensure that their children learn in an environment that is safe from Covid-19 infections, which could come with demand for higher fees to finance social distancing infrastructure. 

Fees structure

Private schools set their own fees structures without any State intervention while the government controls levies payable in public learning institutions.

Parents with learners in national public secondary schools and extra county boarding schools in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Nyeri, Thika and Eldoret towns; which are classified as Category A, pay Sh53,554 annually, with the government topping up Sh22,244. 

Other public secondary boarding schools including extra county schools in Category B pay Sh40,535 to add to the government capitation.

All secondary special schools are categorised as national schools and receive an enhanced capitation of Sh57,974 per learner, with the parents expected to pay Sh12,790 per year. 

Public primary schools and day secondary schools are theoretically fully State-funded, but parents incur charges for meals and other levies approved by the Ministry of Education. 

The government has been non-committal on provision of face masks for learners in public schools. Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha on Monday appealed for donations of face masks for learners from poor backgrounds.

The Ministry has already received donations of 700,000 re-usable face masks from Unicef, with one million more to be given to vulnerable children in a partnership with the Kenya Commercial Bank.

The ministry on Monday announced a new school calendar that seeks to recover lost time after schools remained shut since mid-March when the first case of coronavirus infection was reported in the country. Next year will have terms beginning on January 4, May 10, July 26 and October 11. 

Only learners in Grade 4 and Standard 8, who are already in school, will cover three terms next year. However, all classes will be in school for four terms in 2020. 

“They should reduce the schools fees because paying four times in a year is quite a lot of money in a difficult period. It will be a burden to many parents,” Ms Jane Musili from Kalama, Machakos County, told the Nation.

The terms will be shorter than the usual ones as they will be either 10 or 11 weeks long. The first and second term work is normally covered in 14 weeks whereas third term takes nine weeks. Each of the terms have a one-week half-term break, but this has also been slashed to three days. T

he Teachers Service Commission CEO Nancy Macharia on Monday asked teachers to be innovative to ensure comprehensive syllabus coverage. 

The National Parents’ Association Chairman Nicholas Maiyo said the pandemic had adversely affected families’ livelihoods and that the association would petition the government for a bailout plan to ensure all learners go back to class. 

Stimulus package

“All the chairs (of the association) from all the counties will meet in Naivasha next week to come up with proposals that we shall put forward to the government,” he told the Nation. 

Among the interventions that they will deliberate on is a stimulus package suggestion for the government to support parents by increasing the capitation per learner in primary schools by Sh1,000 on the usual Sh1,420 and Sh5,000 more per learner in secondary schools to the current Sh22,244 that the government sends to schools. 

Mr Maiyo also said the association would propose that parents be given a grace period of two months to clear fee balances when their children resume classes. 

While parents whose children attend public day schools only pay for meals that they eat while in school (a private arrangement between parents and the individual schools), boarders pay boarding fees depending on the category of the school.
The case will, however, be different for parents with children in private schools that have their own independent methods of charging school fees. It is yet to be seen if the schools will issue new fees structures or charge fees according to the structure they had given at the beginning of the year. 

Some private schools have also been conducting virtual lessons, for which they have been collecting fees to stay afloat. Some parents, however, did not enroll their children for the virtual classes. 

Private schools have particularly suffered during the closure, with many winding up as they solely depend on school fees.

Prof Magoha has insisted that it is the parents’ personal choice to take their children to private schools, arguing that those who will not afford the fees should transfer them to public schools.