Prompt payment of school fees and other levies ensures the learners’ educational journey is smooth and uninterrupted.
Most parents visit learning institutions and pledge to settle particular amounts of money for their children, only to disappear into thin air, leaving the administrators wondering what to do.
School administrators deserve respect for mysteriously sustaining learners in learning institutions for the whole term without paying a single penny.
Lately, it has been critically observed that this year has been one of the most difficult for parents and principals.
The Controller of the Budget issued a directive to all counties, barring them from issuing bursaries.
This has not gone well with schools and parents, and as such, a sizeable number of learners are steadily dropping out of school because of incessant demand for fees by learning institutions.
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Some learners, on condition of anonymity, said, ” I am a student like any other. I am sent home every other time for fees. I only stay in school for one month a term, but my parents are expected to pay full fees for the whole term. Can’t the principals be sensitive to this fact?” This is indeed very wrong.
According to available records, on 3/2/2025, the court directed that county governments be barred from issuing bursaries or extending bursaries to new beneficiaries.
Owing to pressure and realizing a high dropout rate, on 3/4/2025, our president, William Ruto, directed the Ministry of Education and the county governments to develop a framework for the issuance of bursaries, which has yet to be implemented.
Most parents could be financially challenged rather than willfully insolvent.
There are two diametrically opposed forces: uncompromising school administrators and the parents, who remain dangling in the midst of the nonpayment of fees and the county Government’s inability to pay fees.
How can we then resolve the situation of increasing teacher-learner contact hours while the learner is absent?
It’s high time the county government was allowed to move expeditiously and settle fees owed to institutions so curriculum delivery could be smooth.
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If everyone keeps quiet, the future of our learners will be seriously compromised, as many will either drop out of school or perform dismally.
I am sure school administrators would wish to keep learners in school, but their myriad expenses will reach the tipping point and become completely untenable.
Parents who have the capacity to pay school levies should do it without being coerced to allow teachers to concentrate on serious learning.
Unfortunately, at the end of the four-year course, some learners would have cumulatively been in school for only two years, yet the examinations they sit test their preparedness for four years.
Let’s look critically at absenteeism due to the inability to pay fees vis-a-vis learners’ final performance.
The Ministry of Education, on its side, asks institutions’ administrators not to send learners home for fees; where does it expect them to get additional funding to cater for school expenses?
Let’s not subject heads of institutions to suffering in the name of patriotism. Some confide that they are not normally at peace with workers and other people who have offered services to their schools and have not been paid. “At times, we are forced to pay debts and create new ones when we get money,” one of them said.
Parents have developed a very negative perception of small schools. Fees are paid piecemeal at small schools, but the entire amount is paid promptly at larger schools.
For our schools to succeed in all circumstances, fees must be promptly paid, regardless of whether they come from CDF, County Government, or directly from parents. This will ensure effective curriculum delivery and commendable results.
By Hillary Muhalya
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