Spending of activity fees likely to dominate discussions at KESSHA meeting

The much anticipated 48th Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association, (KESSHA) Conference is ready for kick off tomorrow, June 24, as over 9, 000 secondary school principals flow to the coastal town of Mombasa.

The conference according to the education stakeholders who spoke to the Education News, will create a conducive platform, where education policies, misguided moves and accusations shall be addressed in crystal manner.

The Principal are ready to counter claims from MPs that they were directing the capitation fees for extra-curriculum non-core activities in collusion with the MoE officials and also seek redress for slashed capitation from the National Treasury exchequer toward the Ministry of Education and their institutions.

Just smarting from the Second Term 2025 ballgames that reached the county levels last weekend, the head teachers of the premier schools will be facing the MPs who had claimed that they were cutting on the activity fees released by the government and using them to fund for unaudited functions including the KESSHA operations.

MPs will be among the key speakers at the week-long retreat that is expected to draw participants across the country including county and regional education officers and TSC officials alike.

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The matter has drew attention of various education stakeholders, seeking immediate intervention into the matter.

While the PS for Basic Education Julius Bitok term it illegal for the principals to run unauthorized accounts and issue support for organizations such as KESSHA, this could only be attained after mutual consultations adding the engagement and deliberations should be transparent and voluntary.

And for the KESSHA national chairman Willie Kuria, the principals were maintaining the accounts for the extra-curriculum but with strict adherence with the regulations of the Ministry. He, however, said the disbursements for the activity fee were inadequate to fully run the schools’ sports in general hence the search for supplementary support.

In the National Assembly, the Deputy Minority Leader Robert Mbui had asked the Committee of Education to explain why the principals were forming associations and operating under the guise of coordinating sports and other activities that are not official.

The Committee chaired by Julius Melly was informed that the head teachers were left almost with nothing after the county MoE officials followed them to part some of the activity fund meant for students.

This, he said, forced the principals to send away the learners to seek for more funds from parents while the sports have been funded fully by the government.

According to the capitation, each student is allocated Ksh 140 but the learner is left with only Khs 25 after Ksh 85 is remitted to the Sub-county for coordination, Ksh 20 to the Sub-county office and Ksh 10 to the regional association.

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And as the principals troop to Mombasa this morning, the activity fees agenda is expected to crop up considering that the principals of the winning county teams will be preparing for their respective sides for the regional and national championship and later for the East and Central finals.

The county KSSSA games countrywide, however, were described as successful after the introduction of the new guidelines of offloading of names of players from the Ministry’s official portal, a practice from the past where schools had been found culpable of cheating and fielding ineligible participants, most of them non-students. This led to chaos and unqualified teams finding themselves to the next stages.

According to the organizers, the MoE director of extra-curriculum activities Nelson Sifuna had ensured transparency prevailed in the ballgames as a way of giving incentives to students to engage in the sports other than the recruitment of outside players who eventually leave the teams immediately after the games.

Of great importance, the heads will for the first time be engaging the new acting CEO of TSC Evaleen Mitei who took over in the Acting capacity after the end of a tumultuous 10-year era of Nancy Macharia who retired recently.

The conference brings together education stakeholders including legislators, publishers, sponsors,  teacher trade union officials, dons and parents expected to brainstorm the current education situation plagued with many questions as it evolves to a new CBE system from the outgoing 8-4-4.

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The AGM comes at a time the country’s education system is facing a myriad of challenges including the controversial model of university funding, late capitation to public schools by the government and lack of enough teachers for the CBE.

The other confronting issues include the transitioning from the Junior Secondary JS to Senior Secondary, which requires more infrastructure, the training of teachers and the selection of the three pathways to the latter.

The trio trucks are Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; Social Sciences and Arts and Sports.

According to the PS of Higher Education Dr Beatrice Inyangala, about 1.2 million learners will transition to Senior Secondary with a population of about 154, 200 teachers. She says her department has developed a programme where some teacher will have to-undergo in-service training to prepare them for the senior school education.

This is in addition to the retooling for the transition whose Kshs 600 million has been channeled through TSC. Perhaps, the 2025 KESSHA conference will adapt ways of tackling the emerging issues as the country jumps to next level of the CBE next year in January.

By ABISAI AMUGUNE