Parents Paying School Fees Through the Nose

A new year is here yet again and children are back to school. To shield parents from the pain of paying unrealistic school fees, the government came up with a fee structure that all public secondary school were required to be adhered to.

As schools open however, it has emerged that public secondary schools have come up with ways through which parents will be required to pay unrealistic school fees directly contrary with what is stipulated in the government’s fee structure.

Most school heads have come up with levies that have been imposed on parents some of which had either been scrapped off by the Ministry of Education or funded by the National Government.

At Pangani Girls High School in Nairobi for instance, it is stated in the fee structure that new parents will pay 4000 shillings for hot water as well as for tea while the existing parents will have to pay 3000 shillings for the same.

In the government’s fee structure, 2000 shillings are provided annually for each student in public secondary schools for the same item, Pangani Girls has been demanding 1500 shillings from each learner.

In total, the fees at Pangani Girls Secondary School this year is 59, 235 shillings per year per student.

Parents with students at Kakamega High School will have to part with a basic school fees of 78,000 shillings.

In addition to 78,000 basic school fees, parents are also required to pay 4,030 shillings for Parents Teachers Association (PTA), 2322 shillings for the facilitation of the Board of Management, 5,150 shillings for PTA activities, 300 shillings for the school magazine, 806 shillings for activities and 500 shillings for university forms. In total a parent will have to cough 91,108 shillings.

Apart from this, the school management has also planned for a series of events along the year that will cost millions of shillings. For instance, 600,000 have been budgeted for external as well as motivational speakers, 2 million shillings for extra co-curricular activities, 527,500 for Saturday lunches as well as capacity building workshops for the school staff, 880,000 shillings for two annual general meetings, 400,000 shillings for four academic days and 6 million for PTA activities.

Those with students at Moi Girls Eldoret will have to content with 69,527 shillings as school fees per student per year with an addition of 11,640 shillings for PTA and 2000 shillings for developments.

At St George’s Girls in Nairobi, the total fees is 74,995 shillings included being 18,940 shillings per annum for projects and facilities, 1500 for computer studies, 500 for the university form. The total fee for the first term alone is 45,402 shillings.

Mariakani Secondary School in Mombasa is demanding a total fee of 52, 571 with 4000 shillings per annum for activities, 3000 shillings for Board of Management Teachers being included.

Ng’iya Girls High School in Siaya County has a total fee of 77,575 shillings and more interesting is the 1200 shillings being paid for the activities of the county education board, 3500 for supplementary tuition which has been banned by the government, 6000 shillings for the Parents Teachers Association and a total of 5012 shillings for PTA teachers.

An intriguing one comes from Kitondo Secondary School in Makueni. In this school, each student is required to pay for a specific bucket made in China at a cost of 600 shillings each, 5000 shillings per year for the funding of the school bus and 950 shillings for the insurance of the school buses.

1060 shillings per year for infrastructural improvement, 2000 shillings for PTA, and 4600 shillings for BOM teachers are some of the charges that those with children at Ribe Boys in Mombasa will have to part with.

To prove that those schools and many others have greatly violated what is stipulated down in the government fee structure, here is what is stated in the government fee structure;

National and County boarding schools are required to pay a maximum of 66,424 shillings per year per student.

Schools catering for the special needs are supposed to pay a total of 69,810 shillings per year per student.

All public day schools are required by the gazette government fee structure to pay 22,244 shillings per year per student.

The government on its part is to subsidize this amount by 12,870 shillings for both boarding and day schools and by 32,600 shillings for schools catering for special needs.

This then leaves parents with the responsibility of paying 53,554 shillings for boarding schools, 9,374 shillings for day schools and 37,210 shillings for those with children in special needs schools.

This fee at all levels was to be spread in the ratio of 50:30:20.

Article by Juma Fred.