The government has disbursed Sh17 billion to public schools for the 2021 academic year.
Education CS George Magoha said the Government released Sh17.47 billion as capitation funding to all learners.
Of this, Sh2.62 billion is meant for learners in primary schools while Sh14.85 billion is to support secondary school students.
With the release of the capitation funds, Magoha said principals should keep all their learners at their respective schools to ensure no part of class time is lost during the shortened academic calendar.
“Principals should dialogue with parents of learners with fees balances to find practical ways of clearing any arrears,” he said.
“More fundamentally, principals must strictly adhere to new Ministry of Education guidelines on school fees that were issued based on the 30-week school calendar.”
Magoha said any additional fees outside of the official guidelines will not be tolerated.
“Parents and all stakeholders must ensure that all Form One students report to their secondary schools given that the Government has already released funding to support learning activities for Term One, 2021,” he added.
He said the Government is impressed by the high turnout of Form One students who started reporting to their secondary schools on Monday, August 2, 2021.
Other than the Form One students, all other learners successfully opened for the First Term of the 2021 academic calendar on July 26, 2021.
The admission of 1.15 million Form 1 students to secondary schools started on Monday amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The admission process is expected to run through Friday.
Education CAS Sarah Rutto on Monday said all candidates who sat the 2020 KCPE exams will join secondary school under the 100 per cent transition programme.
She said at least 20,000 students who sat the 2020 KCPE in jail and those over aged were not placed in secondary schools.
This year’s admission is set to push the population of secondary schools to 3.3 million students.
The first day of admission was characterised by a huge turnout, posing a major challenge in managing crowds in various schools.