Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has said that 29 schools across the country are yet to receive government capitation funds because of an ongoing verification meant to identify unregistered and non-compliant institutions.
While appearing before the National Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday, Ogamba explained that the schools in question are newly established and have to be verified before any money can be released to them.
The matter came up after Narok MP Rebecca Tonkei raised concern that one of the secondary schools in her constituency had not received any funds despite being expected to run examinations.
“Capitation affects examinations. I have a secondary school in Narok County that has never received capitation and is supposed to run examinations. What are you doing about it?” she asked.
Ogamba confirmed the delay, noting that the ministry is finalizing the verification process before disbursing the funds.
“We are working on it,” he said, assuring that the affected schools will receive their allocations once verification is complete.
Members of the committee, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the explanation. Committee Chairperson Julius Melly questioned why the schools were cleared to register students for national examinations despite not being included in the capitation system.
“Someone is sleeping on the job…why did you allow the 29 schools to register for exams, yet you knew they are not beneficiaries of capitation? You are required to enable candidates from those schools to sit for the exams and go,” he said.
Ogamba responded that the ministry is uncertain whether the schools have registered candidates and that the funds cannot be issued until the registration and data inconsistencies are sorted out.
“We cannot even establish, as of now, whether the 29 schools have candidates in the first place. They were not in the system for capitation, so we cannot disburse capitation to the schools, yet there are registration queries and some issues they need to fix,” he explained.
He further told MPs that 570 out of 990 primary schools failed to submit updated data to the ministry even after receiving half of their funds, a gap that continues to complicate the disbursement process.
According to Ogamba, about 6,000 schools countrywide, ranging from primary to senior secondary, are still non-compliant with the ministry’s requirements, with some institutions operating with as few as 45 pupils.
“Over 900 primary and secondary schools had not released information for their numbers to the ministry for capitation,” he added.
The Education CS also said the ministry is facing a Sh3.2 billion shortfall needed to facilitate upcoming national examinations.
“As to why the payment to examiners is delayed is because of the exchequer release. We are trying to see that once the budgets are made for issues like exams, the budget is not slashed,” Ogamba said.
