PS Kipsang: Schools 'got half' of pledged free education cash

Principal Secretary for Early Learning and Basic Education Belio Kipsang. [File, Standard]

The Government has denied claims that it has failed to release money to schools.

Principal Secretary for Early Learning and Basic Education Belio Kipsang yesterday said 50 per cent of the free education funds had been disbursed to public schools through the National Education Management System (NEMIS).

Dr Kipsang said the money constituted of Sh36 billion that the Government had reserved for the running of public primary and secondary schools.

His confirmation came a day after school principals and head teachers complained that they had not received the funds and were therefore unable to run their institutions.

Last week, Kipsang said Government would allocate Sh36 billion to cater for free primary and free day secondary education programmes.

Disbursed funds

He said Sh30 billion would go to Free Day Secondary Education while Sh6 billion would go to Free Primary Education.

The funds were to be transmitted through NEMIS, unlike in the past when the ministry relied on information sent by head teachers.

The PS said the Sh30 billion to 3,000 schools would take care of 2.6 million students whose details had been captured on NEMIS. He said some 500 schools had not provided student details on NEMIS and had not, therefore, received the cash.

Meanwhile, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has directed public universities to align their statutes to the University Act 2012 as amended in 2016.

Amina expressed concern that some public universities had not harmonised their statutes with the Act, while others had not gazetted their amended statutes as required by the law.