By Allan Kibet
The Ministry of Education has asked all public schools to acknowledge that they have received capitation funds, whenever they do, or they will not receive the funds until they acknowledge it. Only those schools that acknowledge this, either through National Education Information Management System (NEMIS) or manually, will continue receiving support from the government.
The ministry, through a circular dated April 28 and signed by Dr. Julius Jwan, the Principal Secretary for Basic Education, disclosed that there were concerns raised from the 2021-2022 audit review that most schools across the country have not acknowledged receipt of funds disbursed by the government.
Schools that have not acknowledged receipt of funds have therefore been given up to May 7 to do so either through a letter to the ministry or through NEMIS.
Currently, in Kenya, the government funds each student in public schools to a tune of Sh. 22,244 per year. That means about Sh 7,400 per quarter, which is calculated by the number of students each school has in order to get the figure that schools receive annually.
In April, during the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) anual conference held in Mombasa, school heads led by their Chairman, Indimuli Kahi requested the government to raise the figure from Sh. 22,244 to Sh. 30,000 for each student.
These capitations came through the free education initiative brought by the third president of Kenya, the late Mwai Kibaki which begun when he took office in January 2003.
About 10,000 public secondary schools and over 25,000 public primary schools are beneficiaries of the government capitation.
