Secondary school principals have warned of a looming financial crisis after it emerged that government funds do not cater for all students.
Principals say close to half a million learners are unfunded because the Ministry of Education decided to provide capitation only to learners captured in the National Education Management Information System.
Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman Indimuli Kahi said the shortfall has affected service delivery in learning institutions, as principals struggle to pay suppliers and other expenses.
The funds were disbursed to individual school accounts last month.
“Capitation funds were released before all principals uploaded student data on the Nemis platform. This was occasioned by delayed Form One enrolment and hitches on the system … this has led to under funding in most institutions as the government solely relied on the data to distribute funds,” Kahi said.
In January, the Education ministry released Sh36 billion to cater for the Free Primary and Free Day Secondary Education programme in public schools.
Some Sh30 billion was for Free Day Secondary Education and Sh6 billion for Free Primary Education. Basic Education PS Belio Kipsang said the ministry had disbursed the capitation targets to 3,000 schools to take care of 2.6 million learners whose details had been captured on Nemis.
He spoke during the release of the funds.
Ministry data, however, shows that enrolment stands at 3.1 million learners.
This means that about 500,000 school children did not receive the money, the majority of them being Form One students who reported to school after the admission date.
Current data on transition from primary to secondary schools reveals the enrolment stands at 90 per cent.