It’s not yet time to phase out boarding schools – Business Daily
Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha (right) lays a foundation stone for the construction of classrooms for junior secondary school at St Patrick’s Iten High School in Elgeyo Marakwet on January 08, 2022. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NMG
The debate about whether boarding schools should be phased out has gone on for years now.
The latest push by principals to scrap the boarding system is informed by the limited space available to accommodate the incoming junior high school classes and the unique demands of the competency-based curriculum (CBC).
The system, for instance, puts emphasis on parental involvement in the learning cycle.
The principals’ concerns around the accommodation are also legitimate. However, policymakers who will sit to consider this request must be alive to the fact that the well-equipped schools are not distributed fairly across the country, and some areas lack even basic institutions in the first place.
The only chance children from such areas get to access quality education is by attending schools in other regions that are often far from home, and they can only do so under a boarding programme.
Addressing this imbalance of resources will take a long time and a lot of investment. Therefore, doing away with boarding schooling summarily will cause more harm than good at present.
