Mwiria Decries Low Funding for Schools

Nairobi Star (Nairobi)

Brian Otieno

24 June 2011

Stakeholders in the education sector should work with the government to make public schools more attractive than private schools. Higher Education assistant minister Kilemi Mwiria said underfunding of public schools has made people lose confidence in their ability to provide quality education.

He said the rich are now able to ‘buy’ education and consequently employment. “We are sitting on a time bomb. Education has become like a commodity that anyone with money can buy. We have to change our direction and go the China way where people don’t want private schools,” said Mwiria.

Speaking at the secondary school head teachers conference in Mombasa, the Tigania West MP criticised the inadequate funding for the Free Primary Education programme. He said the money pumped into public schools cannot catapult public schools to the great heights expected of them. “We need to put in real money in public schools not Sh120 per child and expect to lure children from the private schools,” he said. He said the government bursary should be increased in order to cater for more children who are bright but needy.

He cautioned the government against building more schools to satisfy the growing demand for education in the country. He said the existing ones should be improved and more teachers hired.”Why are we in a hurry to open more day schools when we have not consolidated the existing schools? And we know very well we don’t have enough teachers. Let’s stop lying to ourselves,” said Mwiria.

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