Implement measures to reduce cost of living
By Editorial.Team, July 12, 2022There is a need for the government to put in place a raft of measures to cushion parents with school-going children from what is becoming one of the highest costs of living in recent history.
Despite rising inflation, coming against the backdrop of a looming election, parents must bear the double pain of high cost of goods and services – which is depleting their hard-earned cash — and a tightly packed school calendar that is also eating into their savings and incomes.
Even as schools reopen today for the second term, many parents with school-going children are already counting another 22 days before they dip again into their pockets to pay school bills which continue to soar by the day despite the shortening of terms.
Meant to catch up and close gaps from the days that were lost during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the knock-on effect on the pockets of parents is increasingly becoming more painful as inflation rises.
The cost of living has been edging ever upwards for a while but has recently climbed more than expected and exceeded the ceiling of the Central Bank target range for the first time in almost five years. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the inflation rate accelerated to a five-year high in June on food costs to 7.9 per cent from 7.1 per cent a month earlier.
Indeed this surge was the highest since August 2017 and has quickened since March, fuelled by rising food and fuel prices because of choked supply chains caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Unfortunately for parents, despite the government providing free textbooks in public schools, the high cost of other utilities is making life even harder, making it all the more urgent for the government to find intervention measures that will cool commodity prices in the short and medium term. Unless something is done, the rising cost of goods will have a greater knock-on effect on the education sector. Already, the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association has warned that the cost of running schools has risen drastically and that the fees paid by parents is not enough to sustain operations even when capitation is factored in. The government should, therefore, consider reviewing the capitation from the current Sh22,244 to Sh30,000 for each student or let parents bear the burden of heavy school fees in what will be a blow to parents. The first option is preferable as it will not directly hurt parents’ income.
The general trend is a signal for the government to step in and cushion parents, learners and schools from the pain of high inflation.