Caption: A parent carrying a luggage walks ahead of her daughter set to be admitted in form one at Kisumu Girls High school on Tuesday. (Photo: Muyela Roberto)
Caption: New form one students admitted at Kisumu Girls high school look on as their names get engraved on their school uniforms. (Photo: Muyela Roberto)
Parents in Kisumu County have urged the government to prevail upon the current state of economy so as to improve on their purchasing power which has been greatly reduced by the looming inflation in the country.
The parents who had accompanied their children to various schools in Kisumu during the ongoing nationwide form one admission confided to journalists that their pockets were greatly pained after making assorted purchases for their children.
A sport check by this writer on Tuesday established that most of the students reported to their new schools with already purchased effects.
However, the situation was far different at Kisumu Girls high school where the new learners purchased essential items for instance; mattresses, buckets, basins, bed sheets and school uniforms among others at the learning institution.
Kisumu Girls Principal Margret Mechumo disclosed that the National school was set to admit about 395 students against last year’s 275.
Mechumo nonetheless expressed fears that this year’s admission had a capacity to overstretch amenities within the school owing to the new formula of 100 percent transition rate from Primary to Secondary schools introduced by the Ministry of Education.
Mechumo who is also the former principal at Lugulu Girls observed that the government had stepped up the infrastructure at the school but asked for further development so as to accommodate the additional number of new students which she termed as “overwhelming.”
At Kisumu Boys High School, the situation was not far different where the institution’s Principal Denis Abok disclosed that the school projected to admit about 380 students a number which was far above last year’s admission.
The 2018 form one admission has been mapped out as the country’s earliest ever conducted admission exercise as the preceding one’s use to be conducted in February or late January.
This comes in the wake of rapid overhauls by Education Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang’i in bid to sanitize the Education sector.
This year’s form one’s are also going to be the first to benefit from the Free Secondary Education (FSE) program recently introduced by the government.
This program has seen the Free Secondary Education Funds increased from about 11000 shillings to slightly above 22000 shillings per student.