President William Ruto has directed the ministry of education to complete the digitisation of learner data within two months, following an audit that exposed thousands of ghost learners and non-existent schools across the country.
Speaking during the second national education conference in Naivasha, Nakuru county, on Thursday, Ruto said the exercise, being undertaken in collaboration with Konza Technopolis, will help strengthen accountability and improve planning in the education sector.
“I have instructed the Ministry of Education to, in the next two months, complete digitizing all education details of all learners to promote accountability,” he said.
The President said a recent verification audit had identified 87,000 ghost secondary school students, 800,000 fake primary school pupils and 200 non-existent schools. According to Ruto, the government had been losing Sh1.2 billion annually through payments made for learners who did not exist.
“We are asking some very difficult questions to some of our headteachers, and to some of our leaders in education at the county level,” he said.
Ruto also urged teachers’ union leaders to encourage head teachers to adopt the e-Citizen platform for payment of school fees, saying this would reduce cash handling and enhance transparency.
The President said the government had increased the education budget from Sh500 billion in 2022 to Sh702 billion in the current financial year, with the allocation expected to rise to Sh767 billion in the 2026/2027 financial year.
He said the government had hired 100,000 teachers over the past three years, while 23,000 classrooms and 1,600 laboratories were under construction across the country.
Corruption remains one of the main problem that continues to plague the education sector.
"There are unscrupulous people out there who have introduced budgetary items to the budget of schools thereby raising the budget of running those institutions. We have a school where school fees was raised from Sh53,000 to Sh100,000. Some budgetary lines were found to be non-essential like Sh26 million for going to Dubai, Sh13 million for speeches during prize giving ceremonies and, Sh1.3 million for spiritual nourishment", said Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba.
President Ruto said timely disbursement of capitation funds remained a priority, adding that beginning this year, public schools would receive the funds before opening dates.
The President also defended ongoing curriculum reforms, saying learners transitioning to senior school were already showing positive learning outcomes.
Ruto further called for an urgent national conversation on the high cost of school uniforms, saying it had become a barrier for many families. He also urged the conference to explore ways of streamlining the bursary system.
The conference was attended by senior education officials, union leaders, MPs, head teachers’ associations and university representatives.
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