If at all the government is serious about free education, it should scrap entry fee required for students joining higher institutions of learning.
This is according to a Kiambu-based politician, Gladys Chania.
She argues that the imposition of entry fee in all public schools in the country has rendered the government’s free education programme counterproductive.
Chania notes that in most cases, parents whose children are joining secondary schools colleges and universities have been oppressed by this regulation.“When admission or the actual reporting to colleges or schools is not possible due to some mandatory entry fees then, it lenders the free program useless,” observes Chania.
“Most students are not able to enter colleges due to that because most of our universities are asking for between Sh20, 000 and Sh50, 000 to admit the students which are too high for peasant parents.”
She spoke to Hivisasa on phone Friday.
She challenged the state through the Ministry of Education to strategize on how it operates in the running of public institutions of learning noting that the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) is not effective as it should be.
"HELB which is supposed to help the students in the facilitation of other needs comes way later after more than eight months thus, making the students hopeless. Things are not any better because even those who don't make to the university are not having it easy with vocational training colleges whereby most counties are not remitting the grants funds to the institutions this making them not to admit at all,” she adds.
Chania who doubles up as a counseling psychologist asked Parliament and the Senate to focus on education issues especially in auditing of all funds channeled to public institutions of learning.
Her sentiments come in the wake of a fiery directive by Deputy President William Ruto two weeks ago. The DP warned school heads against sending away students over fee balances saying the government has catered for this.
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