PS: Why schools are struggling to make ends meet

The government has been struggling to fund the growing student population which has surged by one million as of January 2024, Principal Secretary State Department for Basic Education Belio Kipsang has said.

Kipsang also announced that public secondary schools will begin receiving funds for Free Secondary Education next week.

Appearing before the National Assembly’s Public Account Committee,  Kipsang said the government has so far released 25 per cent of Sh65 billion allocated for Free Secondary Education capitation.

“This morning we had a discussion with my colleague from the National Treasury and shortly we are releasing up to 25 per cent of the outstanding capitation amount owed to secondary schools nationwide so that by the end of this quarter we can do 50 per cent,” said Kipsang.

“We expect that amount to hit accounts within the next 10 days,” he added.

Last week, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) claimed that public school operations had been adversely affected by the failure of the government to release capitation money.

The union termed the situation in schools dire, with teachers struggling to run the institutions due to the current financial crisis.

Blocked figure

However, Kipsang dismissed the claims saying capitation for senior secondary schools is purely for tuition-related costs.

“Sometimes I see the media saying that you know capitation has not been released and therefore schools cannot feed children. Feeding children is not part of capitation. Capitation is purely for tuition and tuition-related issues,” he said.

The PS nevertheless pointed out that while Parliament has appropriated a blocked figure of around Sh65 billion to the State Department of Basic Education, the student population had been growing while the amount has remained the same.

“We need to increase the blocked figure of around 65 billion shillings because when it was capped at Sh65 billion our secondary school student population was 3.2 million but as of January 2024, we have 4.2 million students in our secondary schools. But the amount that’s continued to be given is between Sh64 billion and Sh65 billion,” he said.

According to Kipsang, while the allocation per student should be Sh22,224, the amount had been revised downwards to Sh17,000 to cater to the needs of all students.

“We can only divide that amount by the number of learners that we have today in our secondary schools standing at 4.2 million so that we can take care of kids in an appropriate amount,” he said.

“But essentially, if we were to give Sh22,224 per student then we would only fund 3.2 million children, meaning that you will not be funding one million students in our schools today,” he added.

Shilling depreciation

He said together with the House Committee on Education, they are trying to find a way to increase the budgetary allocation to Sh22,224.

“I want to confirm to the chair that this year with our education committee there was quite some good engagement and indications given that we shall be able to find a capitation at Sh22,224 times the number of learners,” he said.

Nominated MP John Mbadi, who chairs the committee, lamented that if even the capitation were to increase from Sh17,000 per student to Sh22,224, the government would still be underfunding the department by Sh22 billion saying the current allocation has not factored in depreciation of the shilling.

He further said the underfunding is, however, expected to come down to around Sh11 billion by next year as there will be no Form One class.

“The underfunding will come down to around 11 billion shillings because we will not be having students joining from one class that is why together with the Education Committee we are trying to ensure that underfunding is taken care of in the 2024/2025 financial year,” he said.

He, however, said the amount sent to public secondary schools still takes care of the needs of the schools in tuition-related facilities.

This even as he issued a strong warning to principals and heads of institutions that they will face dire consequences should they continue charging extra levies.