Public secondary schools are in a rush to close following a delay by the government in releasing funds. Some have already sent their students home despite the official closing date being August 2.
The government had promised to release the remaining Sh6.3 billion for second term by Friday.
Last evening, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said the money had already been disbursed. Amina said the late disbursement was because of discrepancies between the Government’s financial year and the school calendars.
“The government has sent 30 per cent of the disbursement to school accounts. The ministry has cleared 11 per cent of the outstanding free day secondary education amounts out of the Sh22,240 owed to every student,” she said.
“The school year and the financial year are overlapping,” said Amina, adding that the ministry was revising disbursement phases to ease the financial crisis in schools. “We are revising the disbursement so we can release more than 50 per cent in first term, 20 per cent in second and 30 in the last term. We hope with this arrangement this will never happen again.”
The statement was echoed by the director of education in charge of secondary schools, Mr Paul Kibet.
However, Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers Secretary-General Akello Misori on Sunday said no school had received money by Friday. He added that workers and teachers employed by school boards had not been paid.
Kenya Secondary School Heads Association chairman Kahi Indimuli said the delay in releasing the funds was worrying.
“I cannot confirm if the money was credited to school accounts. I will get a full report on Monday,” Mr Indimuli said on Sunday.He added that the most affected are day schools “which rely on the government for almost everything”.
A principal told a local daily that his school had not got the money. “We have not closed but creditors are on our necks,” the headteacher said, adding that the situation is more dire for recently transferred headteachers.
Primary schools have received all their funding for second term. Schools are supposed to get 50 per cent of the government funding in first term, 30 per cent in second term and the rest in third term.
Early this month, Education PS Belio Kipsang told headteachers that the remaining Sh6 billion would be released before the end of last week.
It is not the first time schools are in a financial crisis. In May last year, a union wrote to the ministry, saying the delay in releasing cash had inconvenienced school programmes.
TEACHERS’ STRIKE LOOMING
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has maintained that teachers will go on strike once schools open for third term in September if their employer does not drop policies deemed disadvantageous to tutors. Speaking at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology on Sunday, KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion said the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) should drop the recently enacted policies that hurt the welfare of teachers.
Mr Sossion was speaking during the World Transformative Education Conference at MMUST. He said delocalization and appraisal of teachers was being implemented by TSC without consulting stakeholders in the sector.
“This dictatorial tendencies by TSC has hurt the morale of teachers. The claims by the teacher’s employer that the policies are contained in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was untrue and we are ready to challenge this in court. The policies are discriminative and intimidating to teachers,” Sossion said.
The union is now calling on TSC boss Nancy Macharia to rescind the decision to delocalize teachers away from their home areas. Sossion said the current unrests being witnessed in schools where students are torching down dormitories and classes was as a result of taking teachers from there stations to other areas.
“You cannot transfer a teacher from Western Kenya to Eastern region. The students identify themselves with a certain teacher and by taking him away, you demoralize them which in turn lead to the students posting poor results,” he said.