Secondary Schools have come up with ingenious ways to violate Government fee guidelines and in turn burden parents with extra charges.
Some school principals and boards of management have allegedly come up with methods to bypass a Government circular that limits the fees they can charge.
They include some requirements such as teachers' motivational fees and remedial payments verbally without listing them in the fee structure.
This pushes the fees above the recommended caps by over Ksh10,000 in some cases.
In 2017, the Government, through the Ministry of Education, slashed fees for Secondary School students.
In a circular from the Ministry, students in secondary boarding schools including National and extra-county schools would pay a maximum of Ksh 53,000 from Ksh 100,000 whereas their counterparts in day schools were to pay nothing.
Students in day schools will only be required to cater for their uniform and accommodation charges
The government increased its subsidy to boarding students from Ksh 12, 870 to Ksh 22,240 for each student per year.
School boards were tasked with recruiting and overseeing non-teaching staff.
“To minimise the cost of secondary education, it is necessary to rationalise the recruitment of non-teaching staff. It shall be the responsibility of parents to hire them at terms commensurate with qualifications and capacity to pay,” the ministry stated.
