Governors reject proposed comprehensive school system

The Council of Governors (CoG) has rejected the recommendation to establish a comprehensive school system led by one head of institution.

CoG Education Committee Chairperson, Eric Mutai has said they do not agree with the recommendation undermines the basic structure and framework of the Constitution.

Similarly, he said the Council has since withdrawn its participation from any process that seeks to legislate the recommendations contained in the report.

This includes the proposed meeting called by the Inter-Governmental Relations Technical Committee set for January 16.

“The County Governments will continue to manage both the institutions and human resources for the constitutionally assigned functions of education. A convening of any devolved sector forum will strictly be done between the two levels of Government and no other entity,” said Mutai on Wednesday, in a press conference held at the CoG Headquarters in Nairobi.

Governors oppose PWPER

Mutai spoke after CoG Legal, Constitutional and Intergovernmental relations and the Education committee held a consultative meeting to discuss the implications of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER).

He said counties have made tremendous efforts towards transforming the devolved education functions assigned to them by the Constitution.

Currently, counties are managing at least 30,400 pre-primary schools, employing over 54,000 teachers and over 2.3 million children are enrolled across the country.

Similarly, he said counties cumulatively allocate over Ksh8 billion every year towards education, a situation governors stated was unheard of before devolution, where pre-primary education was mainly supported by communities.

“Since the function was devolved before costing, it is important to note that counties have achieved all this with no specific financial resource having been devolved to support the pre-primary education function,” he explained.

Though the council recognized efforts made by PWPER towards transforming the education sector, Mutai said there should be further consultations to ensure all perspectives and concerns of counties are adequately considered in realizing the recommendations.

“The recommendations of the PWPER are unacceptable to the council because they heavily claw back on devolution,” he affirmed

The working party had recommended that the Ministry of Education adopts a Comprehensive School system comprising Pre-Primary, Primary school and Junior School managed as one institution.