Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service Felix Koskei has asked primary school heads to uphold integrity and ensure prudent management of resources even as they start to acclimatize with the expanded roles of managing primary schools and Junior secondary school under new curriculum.

Addressing 15,000 primary school head teachers during the opening of the 2024 Kenya Primary School Head Teachers Association (Kepsha) National Annual General Meeting and Conference in Mombasa, Koskei noted that good governance is central to the operation of schools in the country.

He urged the school managers to implement policies that promote accountability, prudent resource use and efficient running of school operations.

Managing schools

“I know your roles and responsibilities have expanded. From purely managing primary schools but now you are having additional workload. Now you are covering up to JSS which has broadened your mandate, it has brought in a lot of responsibilities both administrative and also financial. In primary school you were getting about Sh1,500 capitation per student and now in JSS you will be getting about Sh15,000 per student per year. So the responsibility will grow and everyone of us here will have an increased spending space,” Koskei said.

It is in the light of the above, the chief of staff stressed his caution on governance, warning the primary school heads against attempts to develop sudden appetite for more money that is coming their way under their expanded roles.

Tempting tendencies

“It is tempting when you take the calculator and there you find out that you are going to have Sh 5 million or Sh10 million… the head starts spinning and you can easily find yourself whenever you’re walking along the road and a vehicle passes, then you ask your friend, hiyo gari ni shilling ngapi. (how much is that vehicle passing)…siku hizi plot ni shilingi ngapi kwa hii trading center yetu (How much are plots going for in our local trading center?),” Koskei told the teachers sparking amusement and laughter at the parked Sheikh Zayed Hall in Mombasa.

He warned the school heads to be aware that the money coming their way are public funds which they must protect jealously for the sake of education. To underscore the government’s willpower in the effort to dislodge corruption and fraudulent crooks from Public Service, Koskei said a sufficient team of government machinery including the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the undercover Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI), and Anti-Corruption Commission among others, are on the lookout to lead the purge against those with insatiable appetite for public resources.

“No single shilling can a government accept to lose. And I know you are aware government machinery can use Sh1 million trying to find out where the Sh5 disappeared to. And I think you are aware that sometimes you are surprised that you are in your primary school in some corner of this country and you will see some five or six vehicles arriving from Nairobi imagine. Every vehicle has spent Sh50,000 to Sh60,000 coming to ask a very small question…now how about the money. I want to urge you to be very vigilant and very alert,” Koskei warned the school managers.