Professor George Magoha, Education Cabinet Secretary (CS), has warned parents against keeping Form-one student at home because of the high cost of school fees.
Magoha stated that all public Day schools were free in the country and that parents who are unable or unwilling to pay for boarding school tuition should send their children to Day schools.
During a mop up exercise in Isinya County, Kajiado County, the CS revealed that government offers free secondary education in public schools. All a student requires is uniform.
“All education officials must mop-up all students and take them to the nearest day schools because they are absolutely free, the government has catered for free secondary education and all a child needs, is uniform. “he said.
He revealed that some parents were being sly and kept their children at their homes under the pretext that they couldn’t pay their fees.
Magoha directed education officials to do thorough background checks to ensure that only those who are truly needy are assisted.
The CS instructed school heads not to send home one student who reported to school without paying fees.
During the mop-up exercise, Neema Nanjala, who scored 313 marks in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination (KCPE) and had not yet joined secondary school due to lack of school fees, was taken to Kisaju Deepak School by the CS, who ensured that she had the needed uniform and books.
Magoha shared information on Competency Based Classrooms (CBC) and revealed that 6,497 classrooms have been completed in the First Phase of the Ministry of Education out of more than 10,000 expected to be used by junior secondary school students.
The CS, while inspecting the construction of a CBC classroom in Merishow School in Isinya, added that private secondary schools had already embarked on building the classrooms.
Magoha encouraged private schools to accelerate the construction and completion the classrooms by next week for inspection so that they could be eligible to admit junior learners next academic year.
“We are going to begin inspection of the building of CBC classrooms in private schools in the next one week. The schools are working with us to augment the government’s efforts in realizing the construction of the 10,000 CBC classes,” the CS said.
By Rop Janet
Source: kenyanews
