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{
    "id": 611918,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/611918/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 311,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Tonui",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1242,
        "legal_name": "Ronald Kiprotich Tonui",
        "slug": "ronald-kiprotich-tonui"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to address this issue. I come from a teaching background and have been a principal, having served for more than eight years. There is something which we are also failing to address. That is on how schools arrive on the issue of school fees structure. It is normally done by the schools and then taken to the Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs) to approve. Then it goes to the Board of Governors (BOG) and currently, the County Education Board. The greatest challenge to those exorbitant school fees structures are the rich parents. When they meet in the usual PTA meetings, they normally decide mostly on the things to do with boarding and, especially the menu which is sometimes out reach of the poor students. I would have wished that the Ministry thinks outside the box. Long time ago, I understand there used to be something that used to be called categorisation of schools in terms of high cost, middle level schools and low cost schools. There is no way you will ever manage the rich parents because they are the ones who are taking their kids to private primary schools and paying Kshs100,000. The same students will be admitted to Alliance High School and you expect to lower the school fees of Alliance High School to Kshs50,000. You will have a great challenge in doing that unless we encourage the establishment of more private schools at secondary school level, which can now take care of those rich parents. We have very many rich people in this country who have excess funds and when they go to those schools, they push around the poor parents. They are the ones who decide on the fees structure. So, if we could have a system of either categorising schools so that people can decide to go to certain schools based on their pockets, that would be the best way of addressing this problem. That way, the Government can concentrate on low cost schools which are fully funded to ensure that the kids of the poor are assured of quality education. That is where the emphasis should be. My proposal is that we categorize secondary schools and then the Government can concentrate on the low cost schools to offer quality education to the students from poor families."
}