For some years now, schools in Kenya were mandated to charge either 53,554 Kenyan Shillings (around £315) for higher level national or county schools, or 40,535 Ksh (almost £240) for other schools.
This made life easy for us and the children’s sponsors as we knew at the start of the year exactly what each schools’ fees would be.
However, it hasn’t been quite as simple as that.
Schools are permitted to charge extra fees, provided that these were authorised by the Ministry of Education.
The amount paid by the government to each school is 22,244 Ksh (just £130) per child and has not increased since 2019 despite inflation costs in the local economy. This represents a drop in the effective funding of schools by 45%. This is often not enough to fully pay the teachers let alone provide some classroom materials.
Schools have therefore been encouraged to raise money in other ways – including charging extra fees. Crucially for us, schools were specifically not allowed to exclude children unable to pay these extra fees, if they had paid the mandated fees in full.
This was very clear, set out in various letters sent to schools by the Ministry of Education.
The reality was different.
Many schools charged extra fees AND then excluded children. This means even where we had paid the schools fees in full, children were excluded on occasions.
This even happened within weeks of a child sitting their final exams. Several schools sent children home and unless we paid their outstanding extra fees, the child would not have been allowed to sit their exams.
When I visited the Ministry of Education, this practice was described as illegal. It was blackmail.
So I was particularly interested to see a recent letter from the Ministry of Education about Alliance Girls High School. This outlined the result of an investigation into the fees of 120,179 Ksh being charged by Alliance, over double the permitted levels. This is particularly interesting as Alliance is probably the best school for girls in Kenya and one where we had been faced with extras in recent years.
The report states that the school’s Board of Management failed in its duty to guide on prudent management of financial resources. It quoted the approval of 25,000,000 Ksh (almost £150,000) on a five-day staff trip to Dubai. The report recommends the dissolution of the school’s Board of Management.
It will be interesting to see what impact this has on Alliance and other schools. Will it now be the end of excessive extra fees?
Watch this space!
