Nairobi — Parents with children in public schools are paying at least Sh500 each month for evening tuition, concerned that the quality of primary education was on the decline, says a new report.

The report further says that parents who can afford fees charged by private schools have been withdrawing their children from public schools.

The assessment report, titled: "The Impact of Public Sector Wage Bill Ceilings on Hiring of Teachers" punches holes on the efficacy of the internationally acclaimed free and compulsory primary education introduced in 2003.

"Because of high number of pupils in a classroom, many parents feel that their children are not receiving quality education," says the report by ActionAid International, which was released on Tuesday during a regional meeting on education.

According to the findings, teachers are advising parents to move their children to private schools over concerns that the quality of education in public institutions was below par.

"Some sympathetic teachers have told us to remove our children from public schools," the report quotes a parent.

It says many other parents, who have not withdrawn their children, are paying a minimum of Sh500 a month for extra tuition in an attempt make up for poor learning.

The report also reveals that children in most public primary schools are no longer given home work.

This is because the number of pupils each teacher handles cannot allow for individual attention to the learners.

Says the report: "Schools that pretend to give homework have turned parents into para-teachers as they are expected to mark the children's assignments and sign them, with the teacher's role being reduced to ascertaining the role of the parent."

Build classrooms

The report blames dwindling standards on Government's inability to hire new teachers and build more classrooms to match the rise in enrolment.

The Government has been unable to resolve the question of teacher shortage due to budget ceilings for education placed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, says the report.

The number of teachers since 1998 remained at 235,000 until this year, when 4,000 were hired.

And public primary education was not totally free because parents are still paying levies illegally charged by school committees and headteachers, it says.