- MoE has advanced major reforms in 2026, including the Grade 9 to Grade 10 transition and six proposed Education Reform Bills, while unresolved disputes over JSS leadership, teacher welfare and funding persist.
- ECDE teachers in counties such as Nyamira have gone on strike over pay and employment security, while UASU has issued a strike notice threatening university disruption from October 2.
- The Ministry has faced growing pressure to match its reform ambitions with adequate funding, staffing and institutional capacity across all levels of the education system.
Kenya’s education system has spent 2026 changing faster than its institutions can comfortably absorb.
The Ministry of Education has moved the first cohort through the new Senior School structure, pushed six major education Bills into public debate, continued teacher recruitment and promotion, and pressed ahead with the comprehensive-school model. Yet the same year has exposed unresolved fault lines: JSS leadership, inadequate or delayed school funding, teacher welfare disputes, ECDE underpayment, industrial unrest and pressure on institutions at every level of the education ladder.
The paradox is striking. Kenya is redesigning its education system from ECDE to university while some of the people expected to deliver that transformation are themselves protesting about pay, administration, career progression and working conditions. That makes 2026 less a story of success or failure than a test of whether policy ambition can be matched by institutional capacity.
CBE Enters Its Most Consequential Phase
The transition of the first Grade 9 cohort into Grade 10 is arguably the Ministry’s biggest operational milestone of the year. CBE has moved beyond policy documents and training workshops into the daily reality of more than a million learners, their parents and thousands of schools.
But the transition has also exposed the difference between moving learners and preparing a system. Senior Schools need appropriate teachers, laboratories, workshops, classrooms, learning materials, career guidance and sustainable financing. Where any of these are inadequate, the promise of pathways and learner choice risks becoming an administrative exercise rather than a meaningful educational transformation. The Ministry therefore deserves recognition for managing a transition of unprecedented scale, but the real test lies in what happens after learners enter the classroom.
The Government has also moved to give the new education architecture a legislative foundation. Six Bills, covering basic education, tertiary placement and funding, national assessment, teacher training, qualifications and curriculum development, are being subjected to public participation. Stakeholders have raised different views on issues ranging from capitation to school governance and teacher preparation. This is where the Ministry faces an important balancing act: reform needs speed, but education systems need consultation. The current public participation process is revealing precisely where the policy disagreements lie, and JSS administration is at the centre of the debate.
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JSS: The Reform Still Without a Settled Administrative Answer
The JSS question has become perhaps the clearest symbol of the gap between curriculum reform and institutional design. The Senate identified concerns over inadequate training, career progression, leadership conflict, resource allocation and shortages of laboratories, libraries, ICT facilities and science equipment, calling for consideration of an independent administrative and operational framework for JSS.
The Education Ministry has acknowledged that the arrangement has created governance tensions. In March, Education CS Julius Ogamba told the Senate that JSS teachers are secondary-school teachers domiciled in primary schools, confirming that the Ministry and TSC had prepared options for resolving the governance conflict. One option under consideration was having a principal for JSS alongside a head of institution for primary education.
The dispute has now entered the legislative process. KUPPET is calling for autonomous JSS structures, while KNUT supports retaining the comprehensive-school model. This is not merely a contest over institutional names; it concerns professional supervision, accountability, resource control, teacher deployment and the authority required to manage a secondary-level curriculum inside an institution whose traditional leadership has been built around primary education. Until that question is settled, JSS remains the most visible administrative loose end in CBE.
Teacher Welfare, ECDE and the Spreading Strike Threat
There have been genuine gains for teachers. The implementation of the 2025–2029 CBA, teacher promotions and the conversion of some interns to permanent and pensionable employment have provided important progress. But teacher welfare is broader than the payslip. Promotions, career progression, medical cover, examination payments, workload and working conditions have continued to generate grievances and negotiations. This matters because a reform cannot depend indefinitely on teachers absorbing new responsibilities while unresolved employment questions remain in the background. The classroom is where education policy becomes real, and teachers are the mechanism through which that policy is delivered.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable contradiction is visible at the very beginning of the education journey. ECDE is a county function, and differences in county finances and employment structures have produced significant disparities. The situation in Nyamira illustrates the problem dramatically: ECDE teachers have been on strike since the opening of Term Three, demanding better pay, job security, implementation of SRC rates, arrears, promotions and conversion from contract to permanent and pensionable terms. The teachers cited monthly earnings of roughly Sh12,500 to Sh18,000, with some specifically reporting pay of about Sh12,600.
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Whatever position one takes on the legality of a particular strike, the underlying policy question is difficult to ignore: can Kenya credibly describe ECDE as the foundation of its education system while teachers at that foundation remain locked in disputes over remuneration and employment security? The issue is not confined to Nyamira. County-level disputes elsewhere demonstrate that ECDE employment remains fragmented, with teachers operating under different terms depending on where they work, a fragmentation that sits uneasily beside a national curriculum reform agenda that expects every learner to receive a strong foundation.
Industrial pressure is not confined to ECDE or basic education. On September 24, UASU issued a seven-day strike notice, saying lecturers at public universities would begin industrial action on October 2 over the implementation of the 2025 Return-to-Work Formula and the 2025–2029 CBA, after the union said it had not received a financial counter-proposal for the new agreement. The university dispute is distinct from ECDE and school-teacher disputes, but the coincidence is significant: from the early-learning classroom to the university lecture hall, employment relations have become one of the pressures running through the education system.
Funding Remains the Other Great Test
No education reform can survive on policy ambition alone. During public participation on the education Bills, school stakeholders called for the timely release of capitation so that institutions could settle debts and operate normally, alongside adequate infrastructure and learning facilities.
This is particularly important because the new system has increased institutional demands. Senior School requires specialised facilities. JSS requires laboratories, ICT resources and appropriate learning materials. Comprehensive schools require stronger management systems. ECDE requires sustained county financing. Universities require predictable funding and sustainable employment agreements. The danger is obvious: if financing does not expand and become more predictable as responsibilities expand, reform will increasingly be experienced by schools as an additional burden rather than an improvement.
The Ministry’s 2026 Paradox
This is what makes 2026 such an important year in Kenya’s education history. The Ministry has not been standing still; it has pushed perhaps one of the most ambitious restructuring programmes in decades. But every major reform has exposed another question. CBE asks for better teachers. JSS asks for clearer leadership. Senior School asks for specialised facilities. ECDE asks for better employment structures. Universities ask for sustainable collective agreements. Schools ask for predictable financing. And parents ultimately ask one simple question: is my child receiving a better education?
The Ministry’s 2026 record should not be reduced to the number of reforms announced or Bills introduced. Its more important achievement is that it has pushed Kenya decisively into the next phase of education reform. Its bigger challenge is ensuring that the machinery underneath those reforms is strong enough to carry them.
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JSS cannot remain administratively ambiguous. ECDE teachers cannot remain peripheral to a system that calls early learning its foundation. Teacher welfare cannot be treated as separate from curriculum implementation. Funding cannot arrive after schools have already incurred the costs of delivering government policy. And reform cannot be measured solely by whether a learner has been placed in a new grade.
The real measure is whether that learner enters a classroom with a qualified teacher, adequate learning materials, functional facilities, effective leadership and a stable learning environment. That is where Kenya’s education revolution will either succeed or reveal its unfinished business.
2026 has shown that Kenya knows where it wants its education system to go. The harder task now is making sure the teachers, schools, counties, universities and institutions carrying that vision have the resources and structures to get there.
By Hillary Muhalya
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