Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to join you for this year's Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association's Annual Conference.

I note that you will be discussing ways of making secondary education more affordable, increasing the transition from primary to secondary schools, and increasing access to university education. This is appropriately captured in the theme for this year's conference, 'Education for All'.

I am happy that your conference will be addressing the issue of realizing education for all of Kenya's children by 2015, which is in line with my Government's stated policy as outlined in the Sessional Paper No. 1 and the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme of 2005.

Over the last four years, we have made significant progress towards these goals. In the primary school sub-sector, we have raised enrolment from 5.9 million in 2002 to 8 million in 2007.

At the secondary school level, my Government has increased enrolment from just over 800,000 in 2002 to one million and thirty thousand currently. At the same time, enrolment in our universities has increased from 80,000 in 2002 to 112,226 students in 2007.

While these gains are impressive, we must all continue to work hard to ensure that all school age children not only attend school, but also stay and complete the required courses of education.

My Government is doing its part by continuing to allocate the largest share of resources to the education sector. We have also continued to add more resources to the sector in order to increase access to quality primary and secondary education for our children.

Indeed, in the financial year starting next month, the Government has provided an additional 19.8 billion shillings above last year's 99.7 billion shillings. In this respect, we have allocated 119.5 billion shillings to the education sector in the new financial year to June, 2008.

We continue to invest these large sums of money in education because we believe in a better future for our children. Following the successful implementation of the Free Primary Education Programme that we launched in 2003, there is a great demand for secondary school education.

Currently, there are many children who qualify and desire to proceed to secondary school, but cannot afford the high fees charged at this level. For this reason, my Government has taken several measures aimed at enhancing participation in secondary education. These include:

1. Increasing money set aside for secondary school bursaries from 547 million shillings in 2002 to 800 million shillings in 2007.
2. Increasing support towards the teaching of mathematics and sciences by providing grants to 710 secondary schools per year for the purchase of science laboratory equipment.
3. In-service training of over 20,000 science teachers each year.
4. Allocation of grants for improvement of facilities. For instance, in the last financial year, the Government allocated 380 million shillings for this purpose.
5. Allocation of 1,020 shillings per child to all public primary schools throughout the country, and another 2,000 shillings per child for children with special needs.

These measures are intended to ensure equity and equality of access to education by Kenyan children. In addition, my Government is aware that secondary schools in the arid and semi-arid areas face special challenges that require targeted support.

In this regard, over the last four years my Government has given special grants to schools in these areas amounting to 4.9 billion shillings. We are doing this in order to address the needs of children who come from communities and regions that have suffered past marginalization.

Above all, my Government has decided to extend basic education from 8 to 12 years of schooling. As part of our commitment towards the realization of this goal, from January, 2008 my Government will meet the cost of tuition in all public secondary schools. This will cost the Government an additional 4.3 billion shillings in the school year 2008.

Apart from tuition fees, there are several other charges levied by secondary schools that are a burden to poor parents, and pose a serious obstacle to the realization of our goal of universal secondary education. As managers of secondary schools, the public looks to you to ensure that we provide a high quality education at the most affordable cost.

Towards this goal, my Government and key stakeholders have agreed to set up a taskforce to solicit ideas from Kenyans and recommend standardized charges that will be applied and enforced for the different categories of schools. I am happy to note that your Association is a member of the team we have appointed. It is therefore my hope that the report from this team will give us the appropriate standards so that we can all move forward together.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Kenya allocates up to 6.5 percent of its GDP to financing education. These resources are largely realized from taxes paid by hardworking Kenyans, and must therefore be managed prudently and cost-effectively to provide the best value to our nation.

In this regard, my Government has developed a school governance and accountability plan that will be launched in the next few weeks. It is my expectation that when the document is launched, every head of school will read it and apply the procedures laid down in the governance and accountability plan.

In the meantime, I ask all heads of schools to take the management of resources seriously. They must ensure full accountability of these resources to the Ministry, their Boards of Governors, and communities. In this regard, I want to call on all key stakeholders to play their proper roles in this process.

I also expect field officers from the Ministry of Education to play their part by ensuring that those who are appointed to school Boards and Parents-Teachers Associations are competent individuals of integrity capable of providing vigilant and effective oversight in all of our schools. These stakeholders must be in the forefront of ensuring accountability and good governance from the managers of our secondary schools.

Furthermore, I expect you, as heads of our secondary schools, to provide leadership in ensuring discipline in your schools. The current trends of indiscipline, drug and substance abuse, and HIV infection among teachers and students in our schools are worrying.

Our schools are the places where the characters of our children are moulded. If children are unable to acquire the right virtues, manners, and attitudes, society as whole suffers from the poorly formed characters of students who pass through such schools.

It is therefore my expectation that you will lead by example in instilling the virtues of discipline, integrity, and a work ethic in both teachers and students by ensuring an effective and timely delivery of the curriculum in your respective schools.

I also expect you to enlist the parents of the students in your schools through the PTAs, the Boards of Governors, and other stakeholders such as religious leaders and institutions to work hand-in-hand with you in order to turn your schools into institutions of academic achievement and character formation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I conclude my remarks, I wish to commend you and the other heads of our educational institutions for the critical role you continue play in educating our youth. Once again, I want to thank the leadership of the teachers union for their commitment to dialogue that enabled us to resolve several issues amicably.

My Government is committed to continuous dialogue with you in implementing the most effective ways of providing our children with a higher quality of education, and our parents with a greater value for the taxes they pay.

Finally, I wish to thank all stakeholders in the education sector, namely, the Boards of Governors of our secondary schools, their Parents-Teachers Associations, the local communities, members of the civil society, and our development partners for their continued support to our schools.

Although we have made impressive strides, we need to continue with these partnerships in order to attain greater outcomes in the provision of education for all of our children and society.

With these remarks, ladies and gentlemen, it is now my pleasure to declare this conference officially open.

Thank You and God bless You All.