500 school on spotlight as Ministry releases Sh36 billion education cash

Education PS Belio Kipsang speaks after monitoring the roll out of Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) materials at Tawa Primary school in Mbooni East Constituency, Makueni County. [John Muia/Standard]

At least 500 public schools have not sent data to the Government to have free education cash wired to students' accounts.

Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang said yesterday, the schools, which have about 300,000 students, were yet to release the National Education Information Management System (Nemis) data necessary for payments.

This means that these students will not get free education funding. The ministry insists only students captured by the online registration portal will be funded.

“We will not disburse funds to students whose details are not captured on Nemis,” Mr Kipsang said.

He added that from the money released, Sh30 billion would cater for Free Day Secondary Education (FDSE).

Some 2.6million students whose details have been captured on Nemis will benefit. The remaining Sh6 million will cater for Free Primary Education (FPE).

Ghost learners

“The disbursement of FDSE funds will be transmitted through Nemis unlike in the past when the Ministry relied on information secondary schools Principals provided,” said Kipsang.

Students in secondary schools use birth certificates to register on Nemis.

Last year, it emerged that the Government could have been paying billions of shillings to ghost learners under the free primary education (FPE) project.

Data from the Ministry of Education revealed that the total enrolment of pupils in public primary schools alone stood at 8.9 million.

But during the Nemis registration, only about 4.9 million children were captured.