By Kevin Odera
The National Parents Association (NPA) wants the government to ban boarding services in public schools.
Eskimos Kobia, the NPA secretary general stated that the government should only give private schools the mandate to provide boarding services.
“All private institutions should be allowed to provide boarding service hence a policy should be put into place to allow only private schools to offer the service,” said Kobia.
This comes after the Kenyan Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Secretary General Akelo Misori asked the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms to ban boarding schools under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) on October 24.
Misori said that boarding schools were not useful in enhancing the quality of education but were only used for business purposes.
“Education is a public good and should not be subjected to individual financial interests where we pay a lot of premiums on what is not adding value to education,” he said.
The association supported CBC but requested for some changes through a proposal they made to the Working Party.
“We are proposing that the structure of education from Grade 1 to 6 be renamed as Lower Primary while Grade 7 to 9 should be renamed Upper Primary,” said Kobia.
Kobia also stated that CBC shouldn’t be adapted yet until the government establishes a vote-head for CBC teaching and learning materials within the Free Primary Education (FPE) capitation budget.
