For 50 years schools have known head teachers to be the chief executive officer of a school. They do it all, from finance to learning supervision.
Still in the same period, we have not properly addressed the problem of funding our education sector in a proper way
A lot has been done — Free Primary Education given by the Mwai Kibaki government and later the Free Day Secondary Education.
To date the money the government sends to schools is said to buy chalk, books, and other materials but they barely do.
Then there is the issue of the delay in releasing money to schools by the government.
I could not help but wonder if the government continues delay in sending money to schools what would happen.
Assuming the headteacher is not responsible for financial matters, will a non-teaching manager be the one to ask the student to fetch school fees?
The idea of whether to have a financial manager or not does not solve the problem of funding education.
Only when we sit down and draft a road-map that will clearly define the way our education will be funded will we heal the problem and this is long overdue.
We need to sit down and discuss the issue of properly defining what the government is funding and who caters for the rest.
We cannot shy away from the fact that we have never addressed the issue of who pays for what in education.
This proposed arrangement will end up causing the issue of duplication of duties.
The payroll cost of maintaining two managers also comes into play. It will burden a weary system, instead of correcting the problem, which was the intent.
A noble idea I would suggest is to build the capacity of heads to be able to be chief accounting officers.
They would keep their current financial role and double as the supervisors of teaching, learning and innovation.
The secretary general of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers spoke to the Star
