By ZACK OCHIENG |
@trbnreporter
Hundreds of millions of shillings changed hands as desperate Grade 10 parents were allegedly forced to bribe school heads and education officials to secure admission slots for their children in preferred schools, turning the government’s placement revision exercise into a lucrative corruption racket.
Investigations reveal that almost 500,000 learners were not satisfied with the schools they had been selected to join and sought to revise their transfers which the ministry had allowed.
The situation has forced parents across the country to move from school to school in an attempt to resolve placement challenges, with many claiming they were being asked for bribes to have their children admitted to schools of their choice.
Even though the learners are expected to start reporting today, several parents claim to have been turned away from their preferred schools, while others say they have been given vague assurances that their cases would be considered later.
A national school in Central region, for example, set the selection limit to 66 points and demanded Sh100,000 from parents for enrollment.
“It became a money-making opportunity for some people in the system,” said a parent whose child was transferred. Parents were desperate because their children had been sent to schools they never chose,” one of the parents said.
The transfer exercise turned into a windfall for some principals, sub-county officials and Ministry of Education staff, who allegedly profited from parents seeking placements for children sent to far-flung schools, day schools or institutions outside their preferences.
Investigations by the People Tribune established that some principals in pioneer national schools (C1) were asking for between 150, 000 and Sh 200, 000 to admit students.
Those in the second tier of national schools (C1) demanded for Sh 100, 000 while slots in Extra-County went for between Sh 50, 000 and Sh 80, 000. Slots in county schools were being auctioned at between Sh 20, 000 and Sh 40, 000.
At the ministry, some officials demanded Sh50,000 and changed student’s placements for a school of choice, directly on the portal even without considering the learner’s performance.
“I was asked for Sh80,000 by a ministry official, but I bargained to Sh50,000 and I got the national school of my choice within 10 minutes,” said a parent who sought anonymity.
There were cases where the leaners were placed in schools they did not select while others who had performed well were placed in day schools.
In other cases, the learners were placed in schools far from their homes, resulting in undue social and economic strain for families.
“My child was selected to join a school in Homa bay County, a far-flung area from where I live in Nairobi. The truth is that I do not know the place, and I am now stuck on what to do,” a parent lamented.
There were also cases where male students found themselves being placed in girls and vise versa.
Following the complaints the Ministry on January 6 approved Principals of Senior Schools to place transfer request for the learners seeking to join their schools.
The students were expected to go with the admission letter of the school they had been placed.
The letter has a unique Admission Key. The principals then pick the letters and Enter the Assessment numbers of the learners, and the reason of transfer.
The request is then approved and the learner is included on the admission list.
Rogue school heads took advantage of the situation and demanded between Sh100,000 and Sh150,000 to admit learners in the transfers.
The Ministry of Education said they received a total of 355,457 applications and out of these, 211,66 applications were approved while others were rejected.
When doing the revision, the Grade 10 learners were allowed to list their preferred school of choice plus three additional options they would prefer if they do not get their top revised choice.
The review was guided by an automated system that matched preferences to learners’ performance and availability of slots in schools.
Some educationists now claim that the centralized computer selection system may have been choreographed to fail leading to the ministry being forced to resort to the manual system that has now caused confusion.
Many parents have been in a quagmire, especially those whose children had selected Starehe Boys and Starehe Girls as their schools of choice, after the two schools refused to accept government placements as they have been having their own ways of picking their students over the years.
In the case of Starehe Boys and Starehe Girls Centre, a total of 632 learners who had been placed in the two institutions were rejected since they did not qualify to be placed in there. As a result, the Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba allowed them to reject the learners, leaving only 81 boys and 61 girls.
“Upon comparison of the Ministry’s placement list and the schools’ internal selection criteria, it was established that only 81 boys and 611 girls met institutional criteria,” the CS said.
Some of the parents whose children had earlier been placed at Starehe told The People Tribune that even some learners who scored 72 points were transferred to other schools, including day schools.
“Why did the Ministry of Education give our children an option of selecting Starehe Boys and Girls and they knew clearly that the schools do not use government placements? Now our children are in a mix up, the have no option for a C1 school even if the scored high marks,” lamented a parent.
“We encourage the Ministry of Education to review and address legitimate operational concerns, including cases where students are placed in schools far from their homes, particularly where this may create undue social and economic strain for families.
Any such review should be guided by policy, data, and the overarching goal of fairness, without compromising the national character of our schools,” Mangu High School Alumni Association said.
Separately, reports indicate dozens of trained teachers are stranded after allegedly paying bribes of between Sh200,000 and Sh500,000 to officials at the Teachers Service Commission headquarters.
