A primary school teacher from Nandi County has written a desperate, public appeal to President William Ruto after his Form Four son was sent home from Samoei Boys Senior School over outstanding fee balances, leaving the teenager locked out of class as KCSE draws nearer.
Jonah Mwei shared the letter on Facebook, copying a wide range of officials from the national Ministry of Education to county-level administrators, in the hope that someone in the chain of authority would act before his son fell irreparably behind on his studies.
Mwei’s Plea to President Ruto
Addressing the head of state directly, Mwei was careful to frame his letter not as a challenge to Ruto’s authority but as a cry from a parent at the end of his rope.
”I am writing this not because I am about to belittle your official mandate but out of frustrations that is currently facing the boy above and myself as a parent,” he wrote.
He also directed his appeal to officials within the State Department for Education and the principal of Samoei Boys Senior School, asking them to find it in their hearts to allow his son back into the classroom.
“May find it in their hearts to enable the said boy back to class, after several months and days of missing lessons for lack of fees. It’s part of our last resort after the exhaustion of all other avenues,” Mwei wrote, adding that he had already personally visited the Nandi County Education Director at his office in Kapsabet to seek a resolution.
Mwei did not deny that he had struggled to meet his fee obligations, but he drew a firm line between a parent’s financial failure and a child’s constitutional right to education.
“The student is due for exams and is being locked out of school to punish me as a parent for an offence of being financially unable to foot the school fee balances,” he wrote. “However much or small it may be, it is too much for the child, as I plead guilty as charged.”
He went further, arguing that denying his son classroom access ahead of the national examinations amounted to a violation of the boy’s constitutional rights, noting that access to education is a right enshrined in Kenya’s constitution regardless of a family’s economic circumstances.
At the time of the post, the teenager remained out of school, with his father having exhausted local avenues and turning to the highest office in the land as a final option.
