• Co-curricular funds are currently channelled through a secretariat at the county and sub-county level of the Education ministry.
• Education PS Belio Kipsang tells heads to manage funds in their schools better.
Secondary school heads want the co-curricular funds channelled directly to schools so they can manage it themselves according to their needs.
This was the first of the 20-point resolutions the principals agreed to at the end of the five-day Kenya Secondary School Heads Association annual conference that ended on Friday at the Kenya School of Revenue Administration in Mombasa.
The funds are currently channelled through a secretariat at the county and subcounty level of the Education ministry.
Kessha secretary Willie Kuria, who read out the resolutions, said schools have struggled to take some students for co-curricular activities as funds are sometimes held at the county level.
The heads also want the ministry to commit to negotiating for a subsidised electricity tariff for schools with the Energy ministry.
“This is to manage the schools’ inflated electricity costs,” Kuria said.
The heads said on average, schools pay Sh500,000 monthly in electricity bills.
This, they said, is eating into their already meagre funds.
They also want the speed and bandwidth of the National Education Management Information System to be increased to upload details of their students faster.
Sometimes the system is too slow and some students miss out on capitation after failing to be captured.
However, the principals were urged to complete the registration and admission of students in the Nemis portal at their admission, transfer and exit.
Principals also want the Interior ministry to fast-track the application and issuance of birth certificates to ease students’ registration on the portal.
Kuria said principals want the Sh6,000 meant for maintenance and improvement of infrastructure to be sourced differently from the capitation.
Currently, the Sh6,000 is factored in the capitation, which stands at Sh22,224 per student.
The principals have been calling for an increase and want it sent directly to schools.
“This is to allow the BOM to exercise its responsibility on budgeting and execution,” the Kessha secretary said.
“However, no child should be sent away for failure to contribute."
He said the matter should be further discussed between the ministry, Kessha and the parents association.
They said TSC should lobby for more funds to employ more teachers.
Education PS Belio Kipsang said, however, schools need to manage funds in their schools better.
He revealed they have been forced to reject many budgets for the co-curricular activities because they did not make sense.
He said the majority of the funds according to the budget, will be going to officials instead of the students, which he said is wrong.
“You cannot spend 30 per cent of the budget on children and 70 per cent on officials and teachers accompanying the children. It should be vice versa.
“Focus should be on the children unless we are looking more at the competition than talent identification and nurturing,” he said.
The principals maintained they support the CBC implementation but requested that the designs for junior secondary be released so they can start interrogating it and find gaps that need to be addressed early enough.
They also want TSC to improve the teacher’s medical cover to cover both inpatient and outpatient services.
“Teachers should be moved to NHIF to get the benefits like other civil servants,” Kuria said.