State must increase funding for pupils

Stranded passengers outside Utange bus terminus in Mombasa on Friday. Travellers have cried foul over the ban on public transport vehicles as the back-to-school rush begins. Photo/Kevin O

The return of cost sharing in primary schools should be reason enough for the government to revisit the free education plan.

The Treasury’s grant to the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme for each pupil has remained the same at Sh1, 020 since 2003 despite the cost of textbooks and exercise books having increased exponentially over the past decade.

This has eroded the purchasing power of schools, forcing parents already burdened with expensive basic items to chip in as head teachers increasingly reduce the text book count to match education inflation.

The consequences of this scenario is the deepening of the divide between the poor and growing middle class, defeating the essence of education in boosting social mobility that helps bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

When former president Mwai Kibaki introduced the FPE plan in 2003, his idea was to boost enrolment levels and offer high quality basic education to all Kenyans.

Kenya witnessed a jump in enrolment levels from less than 500, 000 in 2003 to 1.5 million, but failed the quality test since the expansion has not been matched by facilities and teachers.

As a result, average class sizes have increased from 40 in 2002 to 70 while nearly half of the country’s primary schools are housed in temporary or semi-permanent buildings.

This has created a divide in primary schools. On one hand, there are primary schools for the poor, who tend to perform poorly in the Kenya Certificate Primary Education (KCPE) exams.

Then, there are schools for the growing middle-class that tend to score above average in the exams. This divide in educational attainment makes it difficult for orphaned and other vulnerable children to escape poverty, shattering hopes and dreams.

While there will always be some division between the educational opportunities of the rich and the poor, this ought not to be the case at primary school level.

Therefore, it’s important for the government to move with speed and meet its pledge of raising the student allocation Sh3,060 that will triple FPE budget to Sh26.7 billion.

We are alive to the fact that the State is racing to trim its expenses to implement capital intensive projects that will cement Kenya’s position as a regional economic hub.

But if Kenya is to take advantage of a fast-expanding regional economy and plug the growing social inequalities, it must increase FPE funding, improve school facilities and teachers’ numbers.