So you heard that the Ksh 2.9 billion was going to be distributed to assist secondary schools deal with tuition. Some of the requirements are:
-high student enrolment (min 40 per class expected)
-new separate bank accounts for the schools
Now it appears that Nyanza ( you guessed it, that marginalized poor province ) suffers most:
“show that 450 schools in Nyanza —more than half of the total of 891 in the province—have been denied funding”
The reason Karega Mutahi advances are that
“reasons why the schools were left out are low student enrolment and confusion arising from similarity of names and bank accounts—a problem affecting all provinces.”
It is hard not to believe those who always claim that Nyanza is being marginalized by the ‘once/still is” kikuyu administration. One might be tempted to argue that the 40+ rule was meant to cut out Nyanza.
Now, the question is:
- is the money being given on a school to school basis?
-if the money is being given on pupil to pupil basis, why does it matter that the class must be 40+?
-if indeed calculations showed that 40 is the threshhold for getting good returns on the money (show me the math formulas), then how do you expect the schools to “merge” overnight- as being suggested by Mutahi
- the aim of the fund was to assist the needy parents, so naturally, you would come up with a formula that benefits the known poor regions ( Nyanza, NEP ), so how comes the formula selected benefits the more prosperous regions ( Nairobi, Central ) and penalizes this needy region?
-is it the pupil’s mistake that his class size does not meet the magic number of 40 students?
-i thought NEP is sparsely populated. How did they manage such that “All the 41 schools in North Eastern qualified“
My own thought on this matter is this: someone at the Ministry of Education (which we are told is 99% Kikuyu run ) did some math, realized that the class density will benefit Central, Nairobi (with high pop density), and penalize Nyanza (those Luos making life hard for “us”) and Western Kenya.
