The high cost of living is straining parents with tomorrow being the first day of the second term of the 2022 academic year which is traditionally one of the longest and busiest in the school calendar.
The term is expected to be tough for students, teachers, and parents as the pandemic’s impacts continue to affect basic education for the third year in a row.
Parents are struggling under a tremendous weight after the government decided to cram four academic semesters into one calendar year, forcing them to make difficult decisions.
Since the existing government subsidies and parent-paid tuition are insufficient to keep students in school, the principals have urged the government to review the capitation from the current Sh22,244 to Sh30,000 for each student.
Co-curricular activities, however, have not been available to students since the pandemic’s disruption.
Even though the government has loosened its limitations on interactions, the overloaded program won’t yet permit the competitions to resume.
The government has begun distributing capitation funds in four instead of the customary three tranches since last year.
Despite being unable to increase tuition mid-year, the rising cost of goods has made the position of school administrators worse.
When schools created their budgets and levied fees at the start of the year, the majority of food goods, fuel, and other supplies were substantially cheaper than they are now.
In the last six months, the cost of some foods, such as maize and beans, has more than doubled.
The second term is typically one of the longest and busiest in the Kenyan academic year normally, it takes 14 weeks to complete, but it will now just take 10.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) uses the majority of public schools as polling places and tallying locations.
Schools will be closed for half-term from August 6 to August 13 to accommodate the General Election, which will be held on August 9.
During the last elections on August 8, 2017 schools were closed earlier than expected to allow the IEBC to use the buildings as polling or tallying locations.
The second term begins on July 11 and lasts for 10 weeks until September 16 according to a new school calendar for the current year, while the third term begins on September 26 and lasts until November 25.
Learning institutions are likewise working against the clock as the nation gets ready for the general election to finish the majority of their curricula, if not all, before the election.
To make up for the time that will be lost to election activities, some schools have implemented alternative learning schedules for makeup lessons, particularly for test classes.