The administration of private tuition for standard eight and form four candidates has been going on in most schools of Embu County under packages agreed upon by parents and teachers.
Most of the learners targeted in the sometimes controversial private tuition, under whose parents pay for extra allowances to the teachers to teach mostly in the morning, are mainly those in primary schools.
Sources who refused to be named indicated that the parents paid between Sh800 and Sh1, 000 for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examinations mainly from day schools.
“We discussed the matter of tuition with the teachers and agreed that the pupils needed some extra coaching, we were not forced to register our children in the tuition packages, and we know that they are of benefit to the learners”, said a parent from St Mary’s Gatondo Primary School in Manyatta.
Despite heightened campaigns to promote online lessons to ease costs in transport costs and acquisition of books, most students have been hesitant to embrace the digital platforms available but spend notable amounts of time browsing entertainment materials online.
A Resident of Muthatari in the outskirts of Embu town confessed to facing a problem in controlling her children who study at the Gatondo Primary School long screen duration on both the TV and Smartphones and sometimes she is forced to switch the gadgets off.
“The TV and smartphone use durations are becoming an issue because my daughters want to be stuck on the screen for hours which I find unhealthy, so sometimes I just switch the gadgets off and involve them in some domestic chores or advise them to just play around”, said the parent.
Education News talked to a number of learners attending tuition in various schools in Manyatta and Mbeere South who agreed that they also supported the idea of attending the extra tuition and it was not stressful.
Juan Kamau, a learner from school in the outskirts of Embu town and this year’s KCPE candidate confessed that she liked attending the extra tuition and hoped that she would improve her performance in various subjects in which she has been recording poor grades.
“I like the tuition, our teachers do not burden us they take us through the lessons with ease and rarely give us homework, we are frequently given exercises and that is all,” said Juan adding that since she started attending the lessons, she had improved her tackling of revision questions in all subjects.
In most schools in Mbeere South, however, little tuition was taking place and some schools had only allocated learners duties to be at the schools to mainly provide some security but not to study.
A teacher from a primary school in the Kiambere area confessed that most school heads and teachers had decided to give the children time to rest and relax before they resumed lessons in the third term.
“The head teachers discussed the issue with the teachers and decided to respect a directive by the government which made the private tuition illegal hence this time few schools are offering holiday tuition”, explained the teacher who resides more than 20 kilometres from the school.
Most teachers said that because of returning to their villages for holiday, it turned out that it would have been a bit expensive for parents to meet their allowances which would have needed cash transport and lunch facilitation.
In only a few days secondary schools have been involving their KCSE candidates in tuition attended by teachers with someday and boarding school managements allowing students in the institutions’ neighbourhoods to access the classrooms and libraries to study by themselves.
The flow of student readers at the Kenya National Library Services (KNLS) Embu Branch library has been on the increase since the school opened for the second term holidays with the junior section also attracting a sizeable number of readers.
By Robert Nyagah
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