How vacant school slots are sold to moneyed parents

 Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi address Journalists shortly after he presided over the National Delegate's Conference, organized by the National Parents Association at the University of Nairobi on Friday 30th ,January 2015.PHOTO DAVID NJAAGA

The recent Form One selection fiasco has created a fertile ground for corruption as some parents, whose children missed admission to top performing schools, have resorted to bribery.

Desperate parents are now using money to buy slots, a situation that is likely to worsen the primary-secondary school transition crisis as experienced in many parts of the country.

Musau Ndunda, the Secretary General of Kenya National Association of Parents claims money has been changing hands to the tune of Sh100, 000 per child. He says the association is considering asking the police to investigate the alleged corruption in the selection process as parents with deep pockets reportedly secure places easily for children not admitted in their preferred schools.

Ndunda wants an audit to determine the number of students who have missed out on national schools where they had been admitted and those who have replaced them.

He says that the two-week period given to learners to join schools was too short for some parents to raise school fees in time. This in turn, he argues, has created room for corruption as moneyed parents are scrambling for vacant slots for which they pay to get admission letters through the back door.

“Corruption in the education sector is rampant. It is true that some school principals, senior ministry officials and brokers sell slots after completion of the selection exercise. Money will be changing hands between now up to February 15. The Form One selection is worse than the police recruitment exercise,” claims Ndunda.

When contacted, Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi declined to respond to the allegations. Instead, he downplayed the claims and insisted that the selection was purely on merit, depending on candidates’ choice, quota system, equity and affirmative action.

 Kitu kidogo for tea

It is also emerging that it is not only children from private schools who were worst hit by the process, seen to be unfair. Apparently, public schools have also suffered as exemplified by the case of Mary, whose son sat for exams in a public school.

The boy went to a private school, but registered for exams in one of the public schools in Eastlands where he scored 412 marks.

 As the family anxiously waited for the Form One selection process to be finalised, they were surprised to receive a text message inviting their son boy to join Onjiko High, a county school in Kisumu and not Alliance or Lenana that he had selected.

“We knew he was a bright student but had reservations about him sitting for exams in the private school. That is why we arranged for him to register for his KCPE at a public school,” says Mary, who says she has never heard of Onjiko. “Ati Onjiko, what is Onjiko and where is that? The last one week has been stressful, I couldn’t imagine my boy going to an unknown school so far from,” complains the civil servant, who finally did manage to secure another school for her son.

“The boy is now happy and looking forward to joining his new school. Before then, he looked disturbed as he kept pestering me about progress,” declared the delighted parent.

She claims that the reason many parents prefer national schools is they were cheaper than the highy-rated private schools. She says that during period the family agonised over getting a good school for their son, she met desperate parents who were willing to part with good money for their children’s admission in “good public schools.”

Mary does not reveal how much she parted with to get her son a slot in a different school, even though she admits that, “Nilitoa tu kitu kidogo ya chai.”

Ready to bribe

Job, another parent admitted that he would not mind paying a bribe to get his son who scored 350 marks a better school.

He reveals that he is doing all he can to get his son a place in a reputable school in Western Kenya after discovering that students with as low as 252 had been admitted there.

“The boy does not like the school has been invited to join and would like to join the one in Western Kenya. I am in a dilemma. I wish I knew whom to bribe so that my son can get a place in his preferred school,” says Job, whose son sat for exams at a private school in Lugari.

National Coordinator of Elimu Yetu Coalition, Jane Muthoni-Ouko, blamed the confusion on the Ministry of Education, which she says has adopted an exclusion approach of sidelining stakeholders in making of crucial decisions.

She says it is wrong to ignore complaints raised by parents and notes that private schools play an important role in the education sector, especially in areas where the government has failed. “Nobody, apart from the government, is responsible for the deterioration of education. Not all private schools take pupils from rich families.

We have poor children in slums like Kibra attending private schools. People are shunning public schools due to the existing mess created by government,” observes Muthoni. She questions the logic of elevating more schools to national level at the expense of other schools that are in dire need of financial and developmental assistance. “There should be equitable distribution of resources so that all schools are attractive,” she argues.

Kenya Private Schools Association chairman Ernest Wangai admitted that some parents have resorted to cheating as a result of the skewed Form One selection exercise. He said members continue to register their children in public schools for KCPE exams, blaming the practice, which he termed as rampant, on the ‘discriminative quota system.’

 “The cases are very many and there is nothing as an association that we can do to stop parents from registering their children to sit for exams in public schools. This whole mess has been created by the Ministry of Education,” says Wangai.

He sees nothing wrong with members agitating to have their children join public schools, insisting that it is their right which they are entitled to. Wangai says that they will agitate for the abolition of the quota system.

“Our members have a right to demand that their children be admitted in public schools because there are very few good private secondary schools. The few that exist charge exorbitant fees,” stated the official who is the proprietor of Epren Academy in Donholm.