Siaya — The Kenya National Union of Teachers, (KNUT) wants the government to review the capitation to schools, saying that the current amount cannot effectively take care of the education needs.

KNUT secretary general, Collins Oyuu laments that the current amount being sent to schools to fund the cost of education had remained constant for more than a decade while the cost of living has shot up by close to 50%.

He was speaking at Gagra village in Rarieda Sub County in Siaya after leading a fundsdrive in aid of St. Gabriel's Catholic Church.

Oyuu at the same time accused the ministry of education of putting head teachers in a precarious situation through irregular disbursement of free education funds, adding that school heads were sitting on a time bomb.

"You cannot control a hungry lot" he said adding that the government must improve on the capitation and time release of funds to the educational institutions.

The KNUT secretary general called on the government to streamline the National Education management information system (NEMIS) and stop pegging the release of funds on the system.

He said that several schools have missed on the capitation on allegations that the names of the pupils and students were missing in the system

Oyuu said that most of the schools locked out of capitation were junior secondary schools and added that the problem was mostly affecting rural schools where parents did not avail birth certificates for their children to be entered into the NEMIS.

"Junior secondary schools are hardly hit because at grade six. Most of the parents had no idea that birth certificates will be mandatory requirement for registration" he said adding that this had hit schools hardly. - Kna