Parents should not worry about school fees, says PS Bellio Kipsang

On Saturday president Uhuru Kenyatta announced the reopening
of schools to September 1 and the ministry of education to come up with a new
calender for students by August on how schools programme will be carried.

On Friday last week the Cabinet Secretary of Education Prog.
George Magoha received the report from the National Education Committee
Response team, hinting that the report recommended that the safety of students
and teachers must be prioritized and schools be opened on September and
national exams be done in February next year.

With the schools possible set to reopen on September, the
number of teen pregnancies has increased. The candidate class is among the
first that could be allowed back to school come 1st September.

“Allowing students to go to school at once might be
risk in compacting the disease. The examination class that is class 8 and form
fours be allowed to go back to school as the others join them later.” Said
Permanent Secretary of Education Dr. Bellio Sang.

Speaking during an interview with one of the local station
the PS education Bellio Sang said that the school calendar as directed by the
president will give a directive on how the learn will continue after the
pandemic has contained and parents should not call cause an alarm about the payments
they made.

“No one speculated that adverse effects of the
pandemic. When the calendar is out, learning will resume from where it stopped
similar to their school fees. We shall formulate on how this will be done and
there is no reason to worry.” He said.

Parents have been complaining about the fees being charged
despite their children being at home. While some have been taking online
classes especially from private schools. The government through Kenya institute
of curriculum Development KICD, provides learning on television and radio for
students and pupils at home.

“The government has been providing learning for our
Kenyan students on various platforms. The radio classes and television classes
have been ongoing and note that the program started long even before the
pandemic. Those in private schools are still Kenyans. The technicalities
applied for those in public schools will also apply. They are all our students
and the question of being treated as another entity is not there,” he
added.

The calendar will outline the reopening of primary and
secondary schools, technical and universities across the country.

The PS also hinted that the interns in the national program
offered by the ministry will be given priority when it comes to employment of
teachers.

“The internship program is offered in all ministries in
the government. For our ministry it
takes a year. They help the teachers and help reduce the cost of the board of
management by schools. When it comes to employment definitely they will be
among the first slot to be considered,” he added.