Parents welcome the fee guidelines announced by Education CS George Magoha.
Parents will this year pay fees for a record four terms as opposed to the traditional three terms that make up an academic calendar.
This is besides providing other requirements to support their children's comfort in school.
This will also be the case in 2022. I think this is partly the reason the government reviewed the charges downwards.
The guidelines are the first critical step towards streamlining education.
Fee payment has remained a thorn in the flesh of the sector; and unless the government is tough on the implementation of this policy, principals will still devise other mechanisms of milking parents.
Putting guidelines in place is just the first step towards blocking principals from exploiting parents by making their own fee structures.
An example is a school in Mbooni where the principal had instructed parents to pay Sh8,000 to support co-curricular activities.
Co-curricular activities are funded by the government.
Reducting the school term to nine weeks means children will be in school for a shorter time.
Shorter time in turn means less operation cost, consumption cost, and utility cost.
Whereas this is true, some principals have found the reduction of fees distasteful and openly shown their displeasure.
The fact is that no principal will agree to the fee reduction because they have been looking for ways to hike fees.
Principals have employed all manner of tricks, from labelling extra levies as tuition fees or motivation fees and coming up with many other funny charges.
With the new guidelines, parents now know what they will be required to pay for their children.
As parents, we ask the government to be on the lookout and take stern action against those who will violate the guidelines.
Nobody has ever been jailed for charging fees that are above government-sanctioned levels. It is time that changed.
As it is, fees are already hiked going by the school fee structures issued to some parents.
Kenya Parents Association chairman.
