As the government intensifies its move to ensure one hundred per cent transition of class eight pupils who sat for their KCPE exams to high schools, some parents and students have faulted the move saying they do not have school fees and other requirements needed for their children’s admission to form one.
Speaking to the press at Amagoro area, the parents and some of the students said they were being forced to join secondary schools yet they had nothing to enable them to join the schools with some of them being forced to show up in their former primary school uniforms.
Cliff Wanjala, a student who is living with a disability was set to join St. Vincent Secondary School Kiminini only for his parents to encounter a stumbling block in raising the minimum school fees for term one.
“I sat for my KCPE at Kiminini Primary School and scored 217 marks. I was unable to join form one and pursue my dreams until I received help from well-wishers,” Wanjala said.
Another parent who declined to be named narrated how her son had tried to take his own life by hanging himself revealing that she almost lost hope in him.
“He wanted to take his life and since then we have been on the alert and forced to track each of his movements after he attempted suicide thrice,” the mother said.
Other parents in Amagoro have since enrolled their children as house helps after lacking fees for secondary school education.
“My daughter is set to travel to Nairobi to be a house help so that she can fend for her siblings because I have no work and no husband,” the parent told this reporter.
In a challenge to the government, well-wishers from the area have asked authorities to divert funds that were meant for the flopped constitutional amendment bill towards bursary allocation for needy students who are yet to join form one but lack school fees.
This follows a directive by CS Magoha requiring education field officers countrywide to coordinate with chiefs to ensure all form one students report to their respective schools.
Well-wishers in Trans Nzoia have however taken issue with the directive saying it’s unrealistic since it fails to address the reason behind the failure in achieving the 100 % transition policy.
“Most students are stuck at home with their parents who can’t afford school fees. The urgent solution as of now is to divert funds that were meant for BBI to bail them out,” Joseph Wafula, a political aspirant said.
