Parents Concerned About Return Of Pre-Covid School Fee
With only fourteen days remaining before the opening of the 2023 academic year, parents in Nyeri are concerned about the government’s intention to revert to school fees charged prior to the implementation of the Covid-19 pandamic.
According to those who spoke with KNA, the decision will mean disaster for many parents whose businesses have yet to recover from the pandemic.
In addition, they believe that families will be obliged to devise fees to keep their children enrolled in school, as the majority of school administrators have already shifted the financial burden to them via new school price systems.
According to Josephat Kang’ethe, a fruit trader in Nyeri town, the government should have given parents more time to recover from what he called a “academic marathon” in 2022, during which parents paid school fees in rapid succession.
Kang’the, a father of three, asserts that most parents are struggling to provide for their family as a result of the consistent increase in the expense of living.
“I am still trying to figure out how I will sustain my three children in school given the latest developments. What I am already sure of is that I will have to deal with school fees arrears this year,” says Kang’ethe.
“I appeal to the school heads to give more time to parents who cannot manage to pay the whole amount of fees at once,” he said.
Parents would be required to pay between Sh 8,000 and Sh 10,000 more than they did last year to maintain their children in school due to the reversion to pre-covid-19 fees structure.
In one of the school fees circulars seen by KNA, the annual cost for an extra county school in Nyeri county has increased from Sh 35,646 in 2022 to Sh 40,036 in 2023.
Mary Nyambura, a businesswoman with a child in secondary school, believes that the government should also consider reinstating the National Constituency Development fund, which, according to her, supported schoolchildren through bursaries.
