CS GEORGE MAGOHA ISSUES NEW DIRECTIVES

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha accorded teachers and school principals the go ahead to report parents giving them a hard time in clearing learners’ fees.

Speaking to the press on Thursday, August 25, during his inspection tour of Kisii county, Magoha asked the education stakeholders not to send students home for fees but first seek an audience with their parents.

He argued that the principals could take advantage of the technology through phones to strike an agreement with them.

The school heads were, however, allowed to report parents who gave them a hard time to the Cabinet Secretary’s office as well as relevant authorities.

Magoha explained that the authorities would step in as intermediaries to ensure that a deal is reached between the schools and parents.

“I plead with our stakeholders that we continue to support our children as we move to the examination period and where you feel a child has capacity to pay fees and they are not paying, please engage the parents.

“We are now in an era of technology where I believe most of the parents have phones. Rather than asking the child to go home and collect the money, you can engage the parents and like this morning, if the parent is not cooperating with you, you can escalate that to my officers in the field and even to Jogoo House including to myself in order to engage the parents on behalf of their children,” he explained.

In his speech, the CS also thanked the stakeholders who support children even as the cost of living continues to skyrocket.

He further confirmed that he had interacted with National examinations candidates who confirmed they were ready to tackle the papers.

“I want to thank the majority of school principals who have continued to midwife the children during a very serious economic period is nobody’s fault. I hope that everything stabilises and we move towards having the exams at they have been regimented to be taken,” he added.

Magoha’s earlier directive to principals not to send children away rubbed teachers the wrong way over the funding of education activities within institutions.

The school administrators, as a result, asked the Ministry of Education to review the fee structure with the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Teachers (Kuppet) Secretary-General Akelo Misori noting that the current structure caused confusion and crisis in some learning institutions.