Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu on Monday, January 16, revealed that there will be no fees charged for students enrolling in Junior Secondary Schools.
According to the CS, President William Ruto had directed Treasury to set aside the capitation per student at Ksh15,000 per learner, to facilitate free learning in all Junior Secondary Schools.
Machogu further revealed that the government would spend Ksh9.6 billion to sustain the program.
“No school should charge any fees for Grade 7 learners unless such schools are boarding wings,” Machogu indicated.
Furthermore, the CS revealed that the amount the government had been giving for Secondary schools as capitation was Ksh22,244 and for Primary schools was Ksh1,420 per learner.
“Because Junior Secondary is from Grades 7, 8, and 9, we have worked on a figure that the amount being given to a student be Ksh15,000 almost equal to what is paid for Senior Secondary school learners,” he disclosed.
He equally reiterated that the reason why the fees won’t be charged for Grade 7 was that the constitution guaranteed free learning in Kenya.
“There will be no school fees payable because this is a constitutional requirement that basic education in primary and secondary schools be free,” he stated.
Machogu moved to assure the country that there was no cause for alarm with regard to teachers' availability as the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) was set to deploy more teachers.
“The TSC is in the process of recruiting 30,000 new teachers majority of whom will attend to learners at the Junior Secondary school level,
We assure the country that we have enough teachers and those teachers have been adequately prepared for the same," the CS assured the public.
Parents were also informed that they would bear the responsibility of buying uniforms for their students.
The Ministry also issued fee guidelines for the boarding students to which schools should adhere to.
"Public Secondary School fees for the 2023 academic calendar year will not be changed and will remain at Ksh53,554 while that of County and Extra-County Schools will remain at Ksh40,555," he disclosed.
Machogu informed parents that children enrolled in Public day Secondary Schools should not be charged any fees because the Government was catering for all the tuition costs amounting to Ksh22,244.
"Parents should report incidents of any students turned away for not paying higher fees and other levies to the nearest education office for action," Machogu directed.
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