The draft of Basic Education Bill 2024 provides for the establishment of the County Education Boards and Institutional Management Boards where teaching and learning takes place. A perusal of the bill gives the impression that these Boards are large, will be unwieldy and expensive to run. They are simply a replica of past Boards implying that the Ministry is not innovative enough to come up with smaller, more cost effective and efficient Boards congruent with development in information and communication technology and principles of corporate governance.
Firstly, county commissioners were removed from county education Boards in 2013 and replaced with Independent individuals with vast knowledge and experience in education. They will be reinstated when this bill will be passed.
The teachers and students’ representative in the Board of Management were introduced in 2013. They have been removed in this bill. The parents and teachers association (PTA) was renamed Parents Association in 2013. This Bill reinstates the title PTA. What informed the 2013 changes and what has informed the current changes? Is this a game of musical chairs?
Secondly, the County Education Boards will have 15 members — a total of 705 in the whole country representing specific office and organisations. There will be no independent, knowledgeable, professionals who would be able to give objective observations for the benefit of the counties and yet religious organisations have been allocated three slots. The BOMs of senior schools will have 10 members.
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The PTAs have been allocated only one member yet the sponsors have been allocated three slots. The PTA deserves at least two slots. The comprehensive schools are proposed to have 12 members of the Board. Again the sponsors have been allocated three members at the expense of local professionals who could assist with knowledge and experience in running those schools.
Let us consider comparative statistics in the management of educational institutions. The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is an employer of 350, 000 teachers and 3, 000 secretariat staff. The teachers are distributed in 23, 000 primary schools and 10, 000 secondary schools. The secretariat staffs are distributed in all counties, sub-counties and educational zones. It has an annual budget of a whopping KSh320 billion, according to the budgetary allocation of all the county governments from the treasury.
The TSC has only nine commissioners to preside over it and is largely efficient and an effective organization. Why then, would small day secondary schools with barely 200 students and a budget of paltry KSh4.5 million have 10 board members?
Why would small comprehensive school with 300 students spread out between grade one and nine and a budget of KSh 2million only have 12 Board members?
Would these schools afford sitting and travelling allowances for these Board members when in reality the principals of those institutions have often had to forgo attending important meetings among their peers in account of lack of resources?
Similarly, why would small counties like Lamu, Elgeyo Marakwet and Isiolo have a bloated county board of 15 members? Why would all the county education Board have a total of 705 Board members to run education in the 47 counties that the TSC also serves with only 9 commissioners?
Let us also consider the Electoral and Boundaries Commission that runs six elections in 290 constituencies, 47 counties and 1450 wards involving over 22 million voters and about 46,232 polling stations in one day yet it only have seven commissioners?
Isn’t it clear, therefore, that the Ministry of Education is proposing through this Bill, to continue running the education system through bloated, expensive and inefficient boards for another decade or so?
Where is innovation? Why would secondary schools have more than seven board members? This needs to be looked into afresh.
By Mwalimu Kibet.
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