School Heads Grapple With Budget Crisis
Principals are concerned about how they will feed students due to the high cost of living, which has driven prices through the roof.
Suppliers are putting pressure on some principals by demanding cash payments before delivering goods and services.
The principals are unsure how they will maintain traditional diets on shoestring budgets after the Ministry of Education warned them against raising school fees.
Principals are backed into a corner and are demanding that they be allowed to raise fees in order to afford the high food prices.
The ministry removed additional levies from the fee structure, leaving many schools, particularly boarding schools, struggling to stay afloat.
The capitation money, according to principals, cannot cover the cost of boarding facilities and food.
The ministry should consider allowing schools to charge a little bit more fees to enable us to manage the crisis,” a principal from Rift Valley told Standard in an interview.
On the other hand, he complained that parents are not being fair by insisting that school administrators wait for the disbursement of constituency development funds when, in reality, politicians have gone into campaigns while ignoring education.
According to the principal, inflation has caused most food prices to double. For example, the school had budgeted Sh3,800 for a bag of maize, but the market price has risen to Sh6,500.
Furthermore, the principal objected to Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha’s directive that principals should not return students for fee arrears.
To compensate parents, the government reduced school fees from Sh54,000 to Sh45,000 for national schools and Sh35,000 for other schools. COVID-19.
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However, parents are also bearing the brunt of the tough economic times and a crammed school calendar that doesn’t give them enough time to look for school fees.
According to principals, they may be forced to change the menu for their students, which will not go well with the students because they do not understand what is going on.
The ongoing financial crisis in schools is exacerbated by the government’s failure to submit all of the students’ capitation money.
The ministry set the capitation fee at Sh22,244 per student, despite some school principals’ complaints about delayed payment for the previous academic year.
According to the principal, schools have yet to receive Sh4,000 for capitation.
Meanwhile, Indimuli Kahi, chairperson of the Kenya Secondary Heads Association, urged the government to raise the capitation from Sh22,244 to Sh30,000 for each student, noting that fee subsidies and parent fees are insufficient to keep students in school.
School Heads Grapple With Budget Crisis
