Joyce Waruru, Kirinyaga County Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) Chairperson has stated that the county’s conference was structured to be solid and strong at the sub county level for it to be effective and efficient at the county level.
She said that as a county, they had maintained position one in the region for the past four years and she was hoping this year’s KESSHA’s national theme of enhancing effectiveness and efficiency in education in Kenya, was going to be cascaded down to the schools so as to ensure the county retained its top position.
“Getting to position one is easy but maintaining it in the region is a toll order. We hope the new team of principals will join the movement in ensuring effectiveness and efficiency in the county is achieved in order to maintain first position,” said Joyce.
Talking to Education Newspaper in Mombasa during this year’s KESSHA conference, the Chair stated that Kirinyaga County had different categories of principals including those with very well-established schools, those with upcoming schools and those with schools that were struggling in terms of population, finances and other related issues.
Kirinyaga sub-county KESSHA, Madam Joyce said, despite the differences ensure all their members were able to attend conferences, events or games organized by the body.
“Aligning with this year’s theme, our aim is to ensure in our respective schools, we are enhancing effectiveness and efficiency while giving quality education to our schools.” She stated.
The Chair also revealed that the national executive council earlier last month met with the Ministry of Education and resolved that schools’ capitation shall revert back to 50%, 30% and 20% distribution module where 50% would be provided in first term and 30% and 20% distribute in second and third terms respectively.
She said members had raised concern over the little and unpredictable capitation received from the government and highly recommended the 50%, 30% and 20% capitation model.
Additionally, they had lamented seeing very little textbooks coming to schools for the last two years. She said there were schools in dire need of textbooks while others had textbooks that were dilapidated and that schools’ population was growing yet there were no textbooks in the school systems.
She was however pleased that Kirinyaga County KESSHA had achieved calmness and harmony with its seniors and had established a cordial working relationship.
“We have a very strong welfare that stand together with its members and we have been able to support our principals in terms of distress.” She explained.
After the conference, Madam Joyce expressed confidence that the over 150 principals were going to be able to balance personal life and work life and be efficient at it.
She added that she expected to hear schools thriving when they head back home because they had new strategies in place and performances of schools were going to increase, raising the whole county’s mean score.
She returned her gratitude to all principals that made the conference a success.
By George Otieno
Get more stories from our website: Education News
You can also follow our social media pages on Twitter: Education News KE and Facebook: Education News Newspaper for timely updates.
