Stop Taking Advantage of Covid-19 Economic Effects and Pay school Fees: Magoha to parents
Education Secretary George Magoha has directed parents to pay school fees since there will be no more free schooling for learners with fees balances,
Just a day after returning to school from the half-term break, learners who have fees balances will be sent home. This contradicts Jubilee administration’s policy of ensuring free primary and secondary education in public institutions.
Magoha permitted principals and head teachers to send home learners with school fees balances, after complaints by the administrators that schools are broke and unable to run effectively.
Magoha, who has always warned school heads of dire consequences should they send learners home for school fees, blamed parents for failing to meet their obligations.
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“A majority of the parents who are not paying fees can afford to pay fees. My exemption is that the headteachers and principals will double-check to ensure that the child they are sending home is not from a very poor family or a family that has lost a job.
“The majority of the people who are refusing to pay fees can afford to pay and they must now pay. Many people are taking advantage (of the Covid-19 economic effects to escape from paying school fees),” said Prof Magoha.
Magoha, who was speaking while officiating at the handing over of an agriculture laboratory built through funding by the Japanese government at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Juja , Kiambu County, insisted that parents must just take their responsibilities.
This comes at a time when parents, especially whose children are in day schools, have been used to the usual tradition of not paying school fees.
Schools are in the third term of the reorganized calendar that will run until July 16, 2023.
There are four terms this year that have been squeezed to make up for the time lost last year during the months-long closure.
Parents will pay fees again when the 2021 academic year begins on July 26, 2021 and again on October 4, 2021 at the beginning of the second term.
Last week, principals complained that school operations have been crippled by millions of shillings owed in unpaid fees. They, in turn, have incurred huge debts in unpaid bills to suppliers.
“Parents must take their responsibility seriously and clear the pending fees balances to ensure smooth running of schools,” Kahi Indimuli, the chair of the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association said.
Previously, schools used to withhold students’ certificates until they paid up fees balances but the government later ordered that all school leavers should be given their certificates, leaving principals with huge unpaid fees.
