Categorise schools into five groups to ease admission, says report

Schools should only be divided into five categories for the purposes of students' admission to Form One.

The school fees task force report, however, says generally, all Government schools be categorised into day and boarding for school fees financing reasons only.

Public schools currently constitute the largest proportion with 7,325 against 921 private schools.

The report says the current quota system of admission should be revised to reflect the proportionate share of students sitting for Class Eight in public and private schools.

"This quota system should extend all the way to university," reads the document.

It also recommends that private developers be encouraged to open secondary schools to cater for many students of academies.

There are some 105 national schools today, selecting the best preforming candidates. A policy decision was made in 2011 to increase the national schools from the traditional 18.

This has increased the number of students joining national schools from 4,460 in 2010 to 17, 267.

The total enrollment in national schools is 99,385, representing some five per cent of the total secondary school population. The task force survey indicates that these schools currently charge fees of up to Sh99,950 per student annually.

EXCELLENCE CENTRES

Extra county schools are boarding, high preforming schools with a mean score of 6.5 and above. Today, there are some 283 extra county schools.

They complement national schools in promoting integration and improving education standards.

They admit students from host county and others from outside the county. This means that 40 per cent of the students they admit are drawn from across the country. Another 40 per cent come from within the county as 20 per cent are taken from the hosting district.

Some 36,115 students were selected to join this category of schools this year.

The task force findings indicate that the fees charged in these schools stand at an average of Sh54,523 per student annually.

County schools are the former provincial boarding secondary schools. Their performances have always been 'average'. Some of these schools have well-established infrastructure and are centres of excellence in counties.

The schools admit students from home counties and based on districts of Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidature.

The hosting district gets 20 per cent allocation. The remaining 80 per cent comes from county allocation. School fees charged here is slightly lower than that of extra county.

Sub-county schools are the current day schools and former provincial schools with a day wing.

Students in these schools are all from the hosting district. There are about 5,699 sub-county schools with some 1.3 million students. 

SPECIAL NEEDS

The average school fees charged here is about Sh25,374 per student annually, according to the task force survey. The fees generally cater for lunch, employment of Board of Management teachers, co-curriculum activities and development projects.

Special needs schools cater for visually impaired students and those with hearing challenges. Also those with physical disabilities fall under this category.

Currently, there are three such schools and another 68 integrated schools. The total population in these schools stands at 3,132.

The task force says an estimated 600 students have been enrolled in these special schools. The average fees charged per student is about Sh24,008 annually. The Government, however, releases some Sh20,000 per child annually.

Non-governmental agencies and individual persons own private schools. These schools admitted some 59,705 students this year. There are about 921 private schools with a total enrollment of 165,000 students.