Education is still too costly for majority of poor families

Deputy President William Ruto has expressed concern at the high number of students who drop out of school in the arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya.

Consequently, he has directed that parents who fail to take their children to school be arrested.

This follows reports that at least 10,000 students dropped out of school in Isiolo County in the last five years alone.

The need for education in today’s society cannot be overemphasised and parents must be encouraged and facilitated to take their children to school.

Nevertheless, that large number of drop-outs in a single county reflects a deeper problem that needs to be addressed.

This problem, it should be appreciated, is not confined to the arid areas, for it pervades all corners of the country.

In the arid and semi-arid areas, blame for the poor standards and attendance of schools can be attributed to the Government’s failure to put up modern permanent structures and the inability or unwillingness to provide the few ramshackle schools available with teachers.

Often, in most of these areas, one will encounter poorly clad pupils sitting on rocks under a tree with a single teacher for the whole community, and their nomadic lifestyles do not help matters.

Under such circumstances, arresting parents for failure to take their children to school is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse.

The easier part for parents is taking children to school. The challenge is in keeping them there.

Free education is a concept that is only free on paper, but the reality is, education in Kenya is expensive.

At the primary level in most schools, a parent must buy a desk, provide money for chalk, buy books, and pay tuition fees.

Every week, pupils are required to pay examination and photocopy money plus extra cash for the teachers’ 10 o’clock tea, to motivate them.

At the secondary level, there are students missing out on education, or wasting time at home because school managements sent them away to buy a ream each of photocopy and duplicating paper.

There are those who, despite having paid full school fees, are sent away because they have failed to pay tuition or remedial fee, yet this has been outlawed by the Government.

There are cases where students who fail to make book donations to schools are sent away.

While the Government decreed that students should not be sent home for lack of school fees, the opposite prevails on opening days and every end of the month.

Given the high cost of living, unemployment and meagre resources, circumstances above conspire to keep many promising learners at home.

The government does not take education seriously and nothing attests to this better than the constant squabbles between it and the teachers’ unions. The only way to ensure the quality of education peaks is to live its talk.

Students from poor families who form the majority in Kenyan schools spend the better part of the year at home because their parents cannot meet school demands.

The free aspect of education can only be felt by controlling the numerous levies that lock out many students from the very poor.