CS Machogu: No Junior Secondary School should charge fees unless they have boarding wings

Students transitioning to Junior Secondary School this month will not be required to pay any school fees, Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has announced.

Machogu said on Monday that the government has already set aside Ksh.15,000 for each of the over 1 million Grade 6 pupils who sat their KPSEA exams in November last year.

“President William Ruto has directed that the Treasury set aside Ksh.15,000 per learner as capitation to facilitate free learning in all public schools. In total, the government will spend a total of Ksh.9.6 billion for the learners in junior secondary this calendar year,” said the CS.

“This is almost equal to senior secondary students, who will continue getting the amount they are getting of Ksh.22, 244,” he added.

Speaking at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) headquarters in Nairobi, Machogu said that only schools with boarding wings will be allowed to charge fees.

“No school should charge any fees for Grade 7 learners unless such schools have boarding wings,” he said.

At the same time, Machogu noted that the government has also barred Junior Secondary Schools from charging admission fees for Grade 7 learners.

This is due to the 100 per cent transition policy in the same school the learners were enrolled for Grade 6.

“This is the constitutional requirement that basic education, from primary to secondary, be compulsory and free,” he said.

A total of 1,287,597 Grade Six pupils sat their KPSEA exams between November 28 and November 30.

The examination results were however not used for placement of learners in Junior Secondary Schools but will be part of the process of monitoring learner progress.

President Ruto directed that the examination be used to scrutinise learning progress and provide feedback to education sector players on areas of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) that require intervention.

In his December 1 directive, he advised that the junior secondary schools - Grade 7, Grade 8 and Grade 9 - be domiciled in the existing primary schools.