Show me people who went to private schools who are holding key positions in business or in government, a public school enthusiast quips. Seconds later, a private school admirer asks: How many of your public school classmates do you find in key roles? It is a great divide.
Gordon Menya, who owns a private school, says they “fill the quality gap” left by public schools that are brimming with pupils while facilities are falling off and teachers are poorly paid. “Private schools offer variety given their flexibility. Education cannot be monopolised given the dynamics of modernity,” Mr Menya told A Plain.
Nyakango Elisha, a secondary school teacher, says private primary schools are desirable as “strong foundations to build the children’s cognitive growth.” At secondary school level, Mr Nyakango says public schools are more desirable since they require huge investments that private investors may lack.
While schools are gradually reopening since they were closed in March to keep Covid-19 at bay, 150 private schools in Kenya remain shut either because they lack financial capacity to return or they have been transformed into other businesses. Some are now poultry farms, others are business stalls, while the rest have no activity at all.
While government teachers were earning while schools were closed, their well-paid private school counterparts have gone through lean times without pay or take home a small percentage of it since their employers could not continue paying wages while children were not paying fees. Private schools that were running online classes charged only a fraction of fees, denying workers the much needed salary. Worse, parents kept challenging the charges to the extent of going to court.
This matrix has revived the long held belief that government employment offers a more solid job security. Because of irregular pay and Kenya’s culture of “permanent and pensionable” jobs, private schools have been left holding the short end of the stick when it comes to getting good teachers.
While private schools are okay and return good results in national examinations, teachers keep leaving in search of greener pastures in public schools that provide stability and job security,” a teacher said requesting not to be named.
This argument is critical to parents who are considering getting new schools for their children after moving to new locations, either because of losing a job, losing a part of pay, or starting on the new normal of working from home. “The better option is a public boarding school where a parent and the learner are assured of continuity in terms of staying with a ‘good’ teacher all the way to the time of sitting exams,” the teacher said.
Covid-19 disruptions have left parents wondering what to do with their children in terms of getting a new school that will guarantee continuity and good results in KCPE and KCSE
examinations. Indeed, moving children to different private schools also comes with a considerable headache of how long the pandemic will continue and which school will weather the storm.
Kenyan banks have already come up with plans to cushion the private businesses, including schools by offering loans running into billions of shillings that would give them a headstart in building a resilience nest at a time businesses are folding with abandon.
The government is also working on a Sh10 billion credit guarantee scheme to support small businesses going for commercial loans and may face repayment hiccups.
Parents who opted for private schools when government funding for programmes like Kenya School Equipment Scheme dried up did so to respond to the needs of modernism and to find a way past the barriers of corruption in public institutions that have affected sectors across the board.
Going private has become lucrative in the increasingly competitive world requiring more than average skills, exposure, and talent since it is believed that only a tiny fraction of public school graduates achieve or exceed their dreams, be it in business, sports or employment.
Public schools, proponents say, train pupils to endure hardships, including the many years they are likely to stay without jobs after graduating with a university degree or polytechnic diplomas. On the flipside, it is because of the difficulties that private schools are preferred since they are believed to offer direct routes to the increasingly fewer career growth and job opportunities.
In private schools, things follow a pattern, of course at a cost in high fees and other requirements unknown to public institutions. Often the lessons are more structured, preparing the learner to achieve in areas like passing exams, although there are dangers of feeding the learners on the examination diet and ignoring other areas of child development.
Other schools of thought advocate for a system that allows learners and parents more freedom of choice to deliver quality education. This is how to flourish and achieve independence in a landscape requiring going against the grain in solving the more complex problems. Therefore, instead of talking about private or public schools, quality alone delivers academic excellence.
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