Uncertainty and protests jolt the education sector shake-up plans

President William Ruto during a town hall meeting to discuss issues affecting citizens, with a focus on job creation, at the Kenya School of Government in Mombasa on July 28, 2024. [PCS]

The back and forth witnessed in the past three months over the new university funding model is just a tip of challenges in the education sector, two years after President William Ruto took office. Adoption of the new model has sparked student protests and attracted public criticism.

And now, the opposition has roped in university staff who have openly opposed the student financing formula despite President William Ruto touting the model as the panacea to the university funding crisis.

Critics accuse the President of shoving the model down their throat with limited to no consultation and in total disregard of a task force to review the education sector.

This task force, known as the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms, was intended to guide the sector under the Kenya Kwanza government. 

The report, released on August 1 of the previous year, outlined the direction for education reform under Ruto’s administration.

But critics argue that the new model, which funds students through scholarships and loans, was not among the recommendations of the education reform task force, raising concerns about its legitimacy.

But that’s not all, the Kenya Kwanza government also faces an uphill task in finding a solution to accommodate the pioneer class of the Competency-Based Curriculum (BC) who will be advancing to Grade 9 in January.

With junior high schools being housed in the current primary schools, which previously only had eight classes, it will mean, the institutions will need an extra class to accommodate the ninth graders.

With just three months left, the government is rushing against time to construct some 16,000 classrooms that will facilitate that transition.

Education Cabinet Secretary, Julius Migos, in August, said that the government has so far constructed 3,500 classes. This means that 12,500 classes remain pending.

This could open a can of worms in the transition of the students in January pushing the institutions to worse levels of congestion as school heads create room to accommodate the extra class.

The two years have also seen a return to teacher’s strike after seven years of tranquillity in the sector.

Intern teachers in August staged a protest over seeking their contracts be reviewed from Intern status to permanent and pensionable terms.

This is despite the employment of a record 46,000 teachers being viewed as a win for the Kenya Kwanza government in his first year.

However, the interns resumed duty after an agreement with the government to confirm them in January.

The intern teacher's strike was followed by secondary school teachers' industrial action that began on August 26 and lasted a week.

The teachers were demanding among other things the implementation of new salaries, non-remittance of third-party deductions, and lack of medical services through their medical cover.

Lecturers of public universities were also threatening to strike beginning August 18. They are protesting the delays in negotiations of a new pay deal.

The strike could potentially paralyse teaching and learning in the institutions after four years of stability.

Also met with resistance is the decision by the Kenya Kwanza government to scrap off the secondary school medical cover dubbed Edu-Afya under the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

Instead, the government now wants students to be registered as dependants under the new Social Health Authority that replaces the NHIF.

Parents have been sceptical in listing their children to the plan, arguing it is a ploy to forcefully rally them to the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), where vulnerable populations are expected to gain access to a broad spectrum of benefits, including screening, dialysis, kidney transplants, among others.

Broadly, two years on, recommendations by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms on funding schools have also been marred with haphazard implementation.

Questions now surround the delays facing the ambitious plan to review funding in schools with stakeholders decrying continued struggle with under-funding. 

In the proposal, the capitation sent to primary school was set to be reviewed from Sh1,420 per learner to Sh2,238. This would signify a Sh818 increment.

Junior secondary school learners would each get Sh15,043 as capitation while Sh22,527 for each student in Senior Secondary School.

Above that, schools are also expected to get extra funds for the administration of day-to-day activities provided as a flat-rate fund — varying on the level of school — that will be referred to as a minimum essential package.

The essential package will be distributed as follows: Sh70,200 for pre-primary, Sh536,880 for primary education, Sh1,632,120 for junior school, Sh1,890,000 for senior school and Sh2,060,940 for special needs education.

This means a comprehensive school will get a cumulative Sh2,239,200 as the minimum essential package.

However, the funding proposals in schools have yet to take over except for the capitation to junior school which did not exist before Ruto’s administration.

“The recommendation to increase funding to schools should have been implemented is long overdue, just like the changes in university funding this should have been given prominence as well,” Collins Oyuu, the Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary-general told The Saturday Standard on Thursday.

In their manifesto, the Kenya Kwanza administration also promised to pay for in-service teacher training initiated by the government and bridge the current teacher shortage gap of 116,000 within two financial years.

The Teachers Service Commission has already indicated plans to employ some 20,000 new interns. This means the total number of teachers employed under the Ruto administration will now be 76,000.