Setting the record straight on school heads

On April 8, 2015, I gazetted the Basic Education Regulations, 2015 to operationalise the Basic Education Act, 2013.

I issued the regulations on the authority of Section 95 of the Basic Education Act 2013; the Act allows the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Education, with appropriate consultations, to make regulations which will give effect to the purposes, goals and objectives embodied in the Act. Without the regulations, operations of schools and colleges will grind to a halt.

However, media reports about the regulations point to a patently inaccurate impression regarding its purpose and scope. The impression is that the regulations have given me powers to appoint and sack the heads of schools and that my ministry did not conduct any consultations with relevant stakeholders before gazetting the regulations.

The truth of the matter is that the regulations have not interfered with the power of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to appoint school heads and to exercise disciplinary control over them should circumstances warrant. The regulations acknowledge the Constitutional and legal mandate of the TSC.

Section 5(1) of the Regulations observes: "The day-to-day management of a public institution of basic education and training shall be the responsibility of the head of the institution appointed by the Commission."

All that my ministry has done is to regularise the authority school heads appointed by TSC have been exercising in managing school resources that are necessary to run an educational institution. The resources include funds provided under the Free Primary and Free Day Secondary Education programmes.

Schools have other sources of capital/finance including fees charged parents, money for infrastructure development from the national government, Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and grants from our development partners via the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. School heads have handled these monies and coordinate their use without any contractual or legal arrangements to account for their use.

We are all aware that the ministry disburses billions of shillings annually to schools; the heads of schools receive fees and other monies in the name of and for the benefit of the school programmes from parents. What the regulations have done is to make the head of a school an accounting officer, an authority delegated by the Cabinet Secretary as per the Education Act, Section53(2).

All the regulations now require is that where impropriety is established on the part of the school head of an institution, the Cabinet Secretary shall forthwith revoke the designation of such a head as the accounting officer and request the Teachers Service Commission for a replacement.

The Regulations still recognise the mandate of the TSC to appoint heads of public schools. That is why the minister only revokes the delegated authority after the auditing of school accounts, and other resources, establishes impropriety on the part of the head teacher. It is only proper that the TSC identifies a replacement that the Cabinet Secretary can now entrust the management of school finances and other resources—a power which in law, is outside the purview of the TSC.

The mandate the Constitution gives to TSC is restricted to teachers; they are limited to teacher management. The mandate does not extend to raising and funding the running of schools. This power is reposed in the CS vide Schedule Four of the Constitution. Under Schedule Four(15) and (16) the Cabinet Secretary for Education is in charge of education policy, standards, curricula, examinations and crucially. Universities, tertiary educational institutions and other institutions of research and higher learning and primary schools, special education, secondary schools and special education institutions.

These institutions run on public funds or funds raised on the authority of the Government, hence the need for accountability as demanded by Chapter Article 10 of the Constitution, which spells out good governance, integrity, transparency, accountability, national values and principles of governance, which school heads are subject to as public officers. The regulations envision a situation where the Cabinet Secretary and the TSC would work in harmony to provide education services effectively and efficiently and without the encroaching on the mandate of the other. In developing the regulations in question, the ministry made wide-ranging consultations with key stakeholders. Among the stakeholders included the two teacher unions, Kenya Secondary School Heads Association, Kenya Primary School Heads Association, and Teachers Service Commission, Kenya Institute of Education, Kenya Private Schools Association, religious organisations and Parents Associations.

The ministry organised four consultative meetings on 29/8/2014, 9/10/2014, 14/10/2014 and 28/10/2014. Except the 9/10/2014 meeting, all other meetings were covered by the media. There was a give and take during many of these sessions and the substance of the Regulations was duly interrogated by the stakeholders. I believe the substance of the Regulations are well meant and if supported is likely to give Kenya a platform upon which it can deliver to her children the best education within its power, in terms of resources and the fund of knowledge, experience and wisdom all players in education have.

The regulations will give the Government an opportunity to constitute new Boards of Management (BOMs) for Schools. Many schools have been operating without BOMs because there was no law upon which new ones would be constituted.

They also provide for the creation of an effective teaching and learning environment that will also ensure learners' safety and well being and also that children get the best instruction they require each day while in school.