Blow to Primary Heads as Accountants Manage ECDE, Primary, and JSS funds

Blow to Primary Heads as Accountants Manage ECDE, Primary, and JSS funds

Blow to Primary Heads as Accountants Manage ECDE, Primary, and JSS funds. The Ministry of Education will engage accountants and accounting clerks the next year, in 2024, to ensure the responsible use of monies granted to preschools, primary schools, and junior high schools.

 

This is in response to a recommendation given by the PWPER, which also advocated combining the junior secondary and primary grades into one unit.

 

 

The Comprehensive School, which would consist of all three levels, will be managed by a principle, according to new suggestions from the school reforms team.

Deputy principals are the teachers in charge of the nursery, primary, and junior schools who assist the principal.

 

If adopted, the reform will result in more pupils, instructors, and resources being made accessible to primary schools.

 

At least 10 million pupils are currently enrolled in these institutions, studying in classes from one through eight, according to data from the Education Ministry.

 

With the changes, the number of courses will increase from the previous eight to 11, with two courses for pre-primary, six for primary schools, and three for junior high.

 

The number of students will therefore rise as a result of this. The new head (principal), as was the case under 8-4-4, will oversee operations at all three levels of the school as well as grades one through eight. This suggests that the institution’s principal will plan and oversee the injection of millions of shillings into the facilities.

 

The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms has advocated for government capitation for preschoolers as well.

 

The group has also recommended that capitation per child be examined.

 

The team recommends adding the principal as a signatory to the bank accounts for the preschool, elementary, and junior schools.

 

The government would fund the comprehensive schools through capitation, a minimum essential package, family payments, and sponsors.

 

Government funding for institutions will be dispersed in two tiers, as opposed to 8-4-4. The committee recommends increasing capitation, the first level, which will be based on a school’s enrollment.

 

The alternative suggestion is to provide a flat-rate package called a minimum essential package, which will vary based on the level of education.

 

Under the updated capitation, each nursery school student will receive Sh1,170 from the government each year.

 

Every student in primary school will earn Sh2,238 annually, and junior high school students will receive Sh15,043. About Sh22,527 will be given to each senior high school student annually.

 

Students with special needs will receive an additional subsidy of Sh604 for nursery schools and an additional allocation of Sh3,624 for primary school students.

 

In junior secondary and senior school, students with exceptional needs will get an additional Sh10,000.

 

The majority of the funding for the comprehensive school in public institutions will come from the government, but there will also be additional support channels for allocating monies.

 

Analysis shows the team’s aim to expand the methods and funding sources for educational institutions.

 

Following is the bare-bones basic package. This will help fund universities with a limited enrolment because it will pay for educational expenses regardless of enrollment at the institutions.

 

Sh70,200 will be allocated for pre-primary education, Sh536,880 for primary education, Sh1,632,120 for junior high school, Sh1,890,000 for senior high school, and Sh2,060,940 for special needs education.

 

This indicates that a comprehensive school will receive a total of Sh2,239,200 as part of the minimum essential package.

 

The minimum basic package will cover financial obligations in educational institutions, regardless of the student population.

 

This was thought to be necessary since some schools are unable to enroll the appropriate number of pupils to operate at their peak level.

 

According to the research, this makes it difficult for them to generate enough revenue from capitation to cover both fixed and cyclical expenses, such as BOM fees, mail, rental boxes, telephones, and internet connection in administration and instruction.

 

 

 

To reduce the strain on the government’s resources, wealthy families’ direct household payments will be a major source of revenue for the comprehensive school; this approach will be known as the equity-based funding model.

 

This is similar to the system currently in place under the new university finance model, where students from low-income households receive educational assistance from the government in the form of scholarships, whereas students from more affluent families receive larger loans that must be repaid once they graduate from college.

 

Another suggestion to close the funding gap for educational institutions was made by the late George Magoha, the former secretary of the cabinet for education.

 

blow to primary heads as accountants manage ECDE, Primary, and JSS funds

 

Additionally, it replicates the exclusive Starehe Boys Centre’s long-standing practice of charging higher tuition to kids from wealthy families and little to nothing to those from lower-income households.

 

The reforms team hasn’t made a decision regarding the “well-off” families’ projected household contribution level or how to identify the homes that must pay, nevertheless.

 

If everything goes as planned, there will be a significant increase in the workforce in comprehensive schools.

 

44,496 nursery school teachers currently reside in primary schools, according to TSC data;

 

In primary schools, there are 223,296 instructors at work. The Teachers Service Commission predicts that by 2024, there would be a demand for 120,923 junior secondary schools, up from the current demand of 70,430.

 

Thus, 390,000 teachers may be employed in comprehensive schools by 2024.

 

The principal will have a significant personnel resource with the continuing hiring of 20,000 interns.

 

This number exceeds the 347,000 teachers who work in elementary and secondary schools together today.

 

The committee recommends that the ministry of education rehabilitate underutilized and underenrolled classrooms in elementary schools in urban and rural locations within two years to serve junior high students as part of infrastructure development.

 

For the first five years, the team recommends giving each learner Sh4,000 from the capitation to help with infrastructural development.

 

The project, according to the team, should be finished in two years and used to create the junior school’s laboratories, more classrooms, and other essential learning spaces.

 

The report recommends that the ministry rehabilitate junior school-ready classrooms at the same time in underused and underenrolled primary schools in urban and rural areas.

 

The panel also recommends that the minister of education disburse the infrastructure development fund to the constituencies in six months.

 

Blow to Primary Heads as Accountants Manage ECDE, Primary, and JSS funds

 

According to the team, this will lessen bottlenecks in the delivery of infrastructure development.

 

Additionally, the team offers a framework for restarting the Digital Literacy Programme initiative and fostering digital literacy in the comprehensive school.

 

The DLP project was one of the government of Uhuru Kenyatta’s flagship projects in 2013.

 

The Uhuru-led government boasted that 95% of Class 1 students had received tablets when the program started in 2016, but utilization has remained low ever since.

 

The government chose not to continue focusing on laptop distribution in 2019 and instead decided to build computer laboratories for 23,000 public primary schools.