Ministry of Education (MoE) Sends a circular to schools warning school heads against sending learners home for illegal levies
Part of the circular read:
TO:
All Regional Directors of Education
All County Directors of Education
All Sub County Directors of Education
RE: CHARGING OF ILLEGAL LEVIES BY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The government of Kenya through the Ministry of Education is committed to the constitutional provision of free and compulsory Basic Education for all learners in the country.
The Ministry has issued guidelines on fees chargeable in public schools. Further, the Ministry has disbursed 1st quarter capitation for FY 2022/2023.
The Ministry has released Ksh 14.2 billion for Free Day Secondary Education and Ksh 2.7 billion for Free Primary Education.
Schools should therefore cease sending learners home to collect fees and instead give parents an opportunity to make arrangements with them on how to clear any school fees balances.
Information reaching the State Department indicates that learners are being sent away from schools to collect fees and other levies.
Principal Secretary for Early Learning and Basic Education, Dr Julius Jwan last week expressed concern that schools send home children whose parents or guardians have not paid ‘motivation fees.’
Motivation fee is money parents or guardians pay for teaching outside normal school timetable. The Basic Education Regulations, 2015, prescribes the classroom hours for all public and private day primary and secondary schools to be from 8am to 3.30pm. Classroom hour means 40 minutes (for secondary schools and 35 minutes for primary schools) of any one lesson on the timetable.
Formal education is not the only good or asset they need when they come of age. There are many other things of an informal educational nature that are critical to the growth and development of the child.
The cumulative number of hours in the school calendar is sufficient to optimally deliver curriculum content.
Secondly, the teacher or classroom hours are not the only source of learning or education available to the learner.
Third, learners need sufficient breaks from classroom hours to either undertake their own education through study of course books and other supplementary materials and also to simply relax.
The thrust of the school hours that the Basic Education Regulations, 2015, is that schools should release students to pursue co-curricular and extra-curricular activities that expand their cognitive, emotional and psychomotor lives. It also creates time to build relationships among their peers, children older than them and adults. Crucially, it also enables learners to have time to be alone – to read and reflect.
