By Amoto Ndiewo
Khalif Abdi Farah, a human rights activist based in Garissa, is up in arms over the government’s decision to scrap the school fee subsidy programme amid drought and economic challenges in the region.
“We aren’t out of the Covid -19 woods yet plus we have a drought going on, and now the Ministry is hiking secondary school fees,” he lamented.
His reaction follows the Ministry of Education (MoE) doing away with the programme introduced to subsidize secondary school fees following the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme reduced school fees by Ksh 8,500.
“It was unimaginable that the government withdrew subsidies on essential commodities and go on to punish us with exorbitant school fees during such hard economic times,” he said.
According to a circular from MoE, signed by Early Learning and Basic Education Permanent Secretary Julius Jwan and copied to all County Directors of Education, parents will pay Ksh 53,554 for national schools, Ksh 35,035 for extra county schools and Ksh 40,535 for sub county secondary schools.
This will apply to national and extra sub county schools in seven counties of Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Nyeri, Thika and Eldoret.
While the fee structure applies to boarding schools in the mentioned regions, day scholars will continue to pay lunch fees as the government will continue to settle Ksh 24,000 tuition fees and other expenses.
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