When schools open, parents silently but painfully pay fees since a number of learning institutions demand ‘nil’ balances before the students are admitted.
Sadly, after the nil balances, public schools, with abandon, issue statements through WhatsApp groups where the class teachers “execute orders from the school management” on extra fees demands.
When Form Ones report, school principals claim these extra monies cover “remedial traching” or “extra tuition” and school projects such as buying buses and building halls to accommodate the swollen population due to the 100 percent transition from primary schools.
Principals, during the first meeting with F1 parents and guardians, claim no student is sent home for failing to pay the ‘support’ monies, but reiterate that “any responsible parent” should obey what parents and guardians pass at general meetings.
Some parents pay the extra monies as part of fees to get admission for their children to top-performing schools, and, through desperation, produce the money without raising a finger.
Heads of schools, especially the national ones, also use the enhanced payments to reduce the huge requests for admission. So, this way, the public school chances end up going to the highest bidders or to ‘a special’ class with the ability to pay.
Ability to pay is what happens in the private or commercial world. Sadly, the government has never seen it fit to rein in this extortionist behaviour while the schools are promising better performance in national exam KCSE. (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education).
This behaviour defeats the purpose of public services and what the ‘noble profession’ should achieve, that is helping learners from various background to achieve their dreams. While the schools are not free, charging layers of fees is erecting barriers unfairly before the young people pursuing their goals, banking on their God-given abilities.
Already the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is paying the government teachers the agreed salaries and negotiated pay through the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). Anyone who seeks more pay should either look for greener pastures or start own businesses and by offering solutions to various problems.
Even in the private sector where some teachers could be getting more pay than their public sector peers, no parent is intimidated and harassed to honour the extra fees like is happening in government schools.
Parents are gnashing their teeth paying the extras while their children are humiliated right from the school gates until they clear the fees balances.
This is happening as the government is watching, but incessantly issuing warnings and making unmet promises that no student should be sent home for fees, leave alone the extra payments.
Let’s say this: Schools, many of them extra-county and national schools, are intimidating parents while killing the future of their students with classwork or academics round the clock in the name of committed teachers and counting the number of As scored.
No, students should be allowed to rest and take part in co- and extra-curricular activities to produce graduates who can fit well in the society, leaning on talent, skill, and other capacities such as public speaking.
We appeal to the new government whose foundation is creating growth opportunities for the poor to know that ‘hustlers’ are missing the public school advantage because of nothing but raw greed of the very teachers taxpayers pay to produce leaders of tomorrow.
May President William Ruto step in early or through the planned competence-based curriculum (CBC) task force to ensure public schooling is affordable and no learner is intimidated through these illegal payments.
