- NPA secretary general Eskimos Kobia said that many schools were barely surviving due to the high cost of food and fuel.
- Free food programme targeting students from informal settlements faces collapse.
Image: FILE
Parents are warning of a crisis in public schools due to the escalating food prices and lack of adequate funding for the institutions.
The National Parents Association said many learning institutions were at the edge of closing down due to the prices and failure by the Treasury to release capitation on time.
There is an acute shortage of maize and beans in the country, forcing schools to source the cereals from neighbouring countries at high prices.
NPA secretary general Eskimos Kobia said that many schools were barely surviving due to the high cost of food and fuel currently facing the nation.
He said that a study conducted by the association had identified public schools as the most affected with principals taking extra initiatives to source food for the students.
“The schools are yet to get their full share of the capitation and this has been worsened by the high prices of maize and beans,” he said.
He warned that things would get worse in the coming days after Parliament gave nod to the new 16 per cent VAT on fuel in the next budget.
“Fuel is everything in an economy and once the prices go up in the coming days, expect everything from food to fare to go up,” he said over the weekend.
Speaking in Naivasha, Kobia said that investigations by the association indicated that parents were now bearing the government’s responsibility.
“Some head teachers are sending students home to collect fee balances so that workers can be paid and other learning needs like food can be resolved,” he said.
The chairperson Mirera Secondary School parents association, Naomi Githua, said that the free food programme targeting students from informal settlements faced collapse.
She said that many public schools had difficulties in sourcing food, raising fears of early closure in the coming days.
“Currently, the price of a 90kg bag of maize is going for Sh6,500 from Sh3,000 and getting the produce is a major headache,” she said.
Githua noted that the free feeding school programme had kept many of the students from the informal settlement in class, adding that there was need to support it.
A head teacher who declined to be named admitted that they were between a rock and a hard place due to the rising prices of the cereals and their unavailability.
“Two weeks ago the government released part of the capitation which were used to settle previous debts and we are now back to zero,” the teacher said.