Principals have maintained that they will continue to contract entities who win tenders to supply uniforms, defying the Ministry’s directive to let parents purchase uniforms from their preferred vendors.
Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) National Chairman Kahi Indimuli while addressing the 46th KESSHA conference in Mombasa on June 28, 2023 stated that while advertising the tender, they always pick the most affordable bidder adding that the suggested suppliers and their products usually have passed all required specifications.
“What we do is make it easier for parents, when you see us tell them to buy from Shop A, it is because that shop won the tender. When we say come and get it in school, it’s because we have asked the shop to make it easier for parents to come and collect uniform in school. We can regulate ourselves, we don’t need to be regulated,” he said.
According to Indimuli, they don’t use schools to get money as alleged by some parents, but they provide an opportunity for parents to easily access the uniform. He added that the challenge is that schools lump everything together including boarding facility charges and give an accumulative figure as uniform.
“I have discussed with my colleagues and we agreed that we need to separate these items, so that the cost of everything, including uniform is clear; what boarding items are should also be put down clearly separately,” he said.
The KESSHA boss stated that they have had several meetings with the Association’s Governing Council and agreed that they are going to self-regulate themselves to continue providing the quality of uniforms required for the students to wear and make sure that it is affordable.
He added that the team will also come up with proposals on the various vote heads they would wish the fees to look like, in order to avoid situations where the Ministry gives them vote heads on where to spend considering that they are the ones on the ground.
In a circular dated May 30, 2023 signed by Basic Education Principal Secretary (PS) Dr. Belio Kipsang, the Ministry of Education instructed all Regional and County Directors of Education to ensure that no school in their jurisdiction is prescribing a specific supplier of school uniforms or any other materials for parents and guardians.
This is after the Competitions Authority of Kenya (CAK) also gave a directive that schools should allow parents to purchase uniforms from their preferred outlets as long as they meet the required specifications.
Regarding the broader issue of activities in schools, Indimuli stated that the activity fund should be given a proper vote head of its own so that it can be handled well with Sub-County and County Directors of Education, so that KESSHA only remains with preparations at school since they have been having issues with the Auditor General when it comes to auditing of the funds.
He also called on the Ministry of education to consider training, employing school bursars and be able to transfer them to make sure that things run smoothly in schools, since the current bursars being employed by schools have not reached the required level requires by the Auditor General.
By Roy Hezron
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