Kisumu County Director of Education Sabina Aroni. (Photo: Roberto Muyela)
Education Stakeholders in Kisumu county have petitioned the government to consider raising the levels of infrastructural development funding in public primary schools to improve the state of the learning facilities.
The partners made the passionate appeal after this writer visited various schools only to be shocked that some pupils in classes 1, 2 and 3 were actually seated on mats as there was no furniture for them.
Earlier on, word had spread like bush-fire that auctioneers had raided one of the public primary schools and scattered away hundreds of furniture but this has since been disapproved as unfounded and malicious by respective school administrations.
At Arya primary school, the head teacher John Mark confirmed that indeed the pupils were seated on mats in the said classes as they were in the process of repairing the furniture to carter for the ballooning numbers of new learners.
Mark also argued that there was no vote head in the General-Purpose Account (GPA) or Tuition Account to facilitate purchase of new furniture, considering that Free Primary Education (FPE) funds for this financial year were yet to be received.
The situation was not any different at other densely populated schools like Manyatta, Arina, M-M Shah, Kosawo and Magadi primary schools where the respective managements were struggling to cope with high number of new pupils joining the schools.
There was also a public outcry that the government has forgotten to increase the capitation pupil per in public primary schools said to be static at around 1200 shillings yet the funding for Free Secondary Education (FSE) was doubled to around Sh22,000 up from about Sh11,000 .
A spot check in the said primary schools established that infrastructure including toilets were in a pathetic state.
The stakeholders have since taken issue with the government for what they termed as preferential treatment to students in secondary schools while abdicating its responsibilities at primary level.
Kisumu County Director of Education, Sabina Aroni called on the partners to maintain calm as the government was in the process of stepping-up development in various learning institutions.
She however concurred with the fact that some of the schools especially in Kisumu city had a student population of between 70-84 pupils per class which is against the Education Ministry’s requirement of 40 per class.