African Press International (API)

By Dickens Wasonga

As schools re-opened  countrywide last week, parents  with children in public primary schools within Kisumu municipality now want the government  to rescue them  from the hands of   rogue head teachers who have turned the schools into private academies to aid them mint cash.

When the government introduced the  free and compulsory primary education in 2003, many parents were hopeful that the  days of illegal levies would be a thing of the past but as things stand now, school managers appears to have only become more innovative than before.

A number of primary school heads within Kisumu municipality have since  come up with a system which ensures they  continue collecting money from the unsuspecting parents.

The schemes of the heads is aided by the fact that many parents   are  too desperate only too willing to enroll their children into the schools.

Independent investigations revealed that  the  current trick adopted by the unscrupulous  head teachers is to form school management committees whose composition is made up of a few rich and influential parents who in turn dictate terms to their fellow parents who may not be  financially stable.

To conceal their under hand schemes and  hood wink the district education board that nothing sinister is a foot, the rich  parents collude with the head teachers to sneak in or introduce several levies purported to have been  proposed and approved by the entire parents population while in reality that is not the case.

What the influential parents do is to literally force the levies down the throats of the not so well off colleagues and the trend now has resulted into two categories of public primary schools in the city- public schools for the poor and another for the rich while denying children from poor families the chance to learn.

Our investigations found out that many parents who are not able to meet the exorbitant costs have been forced to withdraw their children from these schools to  look for alternative ones elsewhere.

The spot check by this newspaper showed that the levies among them  the so called parental obligation fee ranges between sh 8500  to 11,000 per year and is charged in almost all the  public primary schools within the municipality.

A head teacher of one such schools retorted arrogantly during an interview that the cost of learning had gone up and as such  parents must be willing to pay more.Those who are not ready to pay should transfer their children  back to the rural schools where such levies were minimal.

“The cost of education has become very expensive and parents must be ready to pay. whoever is opposed to this must find alternative elsewhere and not in my school,” said the head teacher.

Parental obligation fees  for example,  which the head teachers purports  to have been approved by the parents from their respective schools and the district education board  ranges between sh 2000 to 2500  which does not include school uniform.

The schools also require parents who want new  admission for their children to pay a non refundable application fee of  sh 3000 per child.

A parent who spoke to this newspaper on condition of anonymity said last week he  was forced to transfer all his three children from one of the notorious school to nearby school where the charges were  slightly affordable.

“These extortion like levies  is the order of the day  in all the schools here, only the rates are different but  now I feel a bit relieved.A  part from the sh 150 that I pay per year as parental obligation in the current school, am only worried about the transport cost for my children to and from school” he said.

Although  it was apparent from the  investigations that many pupils from poor  family backgrounds especially those living in  Kisumu’s sprawling slums like Nyalenda, Obunga, Manyatta, Bandani and others have obviously been denied the opportunity to go to school, little is being done by the authorities to reverse the trend.

George Omondi, the out going education officer  of Kisumu municipality  said he had received several complaints from parents but claims his hands are tied because such levies are normally approved by school management committees.

However the M.E.O was not able to explain why many of the committees  of schools under his docket were not holding elections regularly as required and continue to be in office to serve selfish interest of corrupt head teachers to the chagrin of the other parents.

ENDS.