Governors reject Ruto's education task force report

A section of Governors from left: Mutahi Kahiga (Nyeri), Eric Mutai (Kericho), James Orengo (Siaya) during a press conference in Nairobi on Wednesday, January 10, 2024. [Jenipher Wachie, Standard]

Governors have rejected the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms report.

They said their views were not captured in the final report and the recommendations will claw back on devolution.

"The Council of Governors (CoG) urges further consultations be undertaken to ensure that the perspectives and concerns of county governments are adequately considered in the realisation of the recommendations," said Kericho Governor Eric Mutai.

"To this end, the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party are unacceptable to the council they heavily claw back on devolution," added Dr Mutai who is also the chairperson of Legal, Constitutional Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations and the Education Committee.

This comes after the committee held a consultative meeting to discuss the implications of the recommendations.

The committee faulted some of the recommendations including establishment of a comprehensive school system where all levels of learning are headed by one head of institution.

The governors argued that the proposal does not take care of constitutional provisions of devolved functions.

"We note that there is no accountability framework provided for the proposed head of institutions to the counties regarding the management of pre-primary schools," said Mutai.

Education is a national government function but county governments run Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE).

The governors are currently managing approximately 3,000 pre-primary schools and have employed over 54,000 pre-primary teachers.

He said more than 2.3 million children are presently accessing pre-primary education across the counties.

"Further, county governments cumulatively allocate over Sh8 billion every year towards education. This was unheard of before devolution where pre-primary education was mainly supported by the communities," said Mutai.

"Since the function was devolved before costing, it is important to note that, counties have achieved all this with no specific financial resource having been devolved to support the pre-primary education function," he added.

The governors also faulted the recommendation to amend Basic Education Act to have the County Commissioner chair County Education Board.

"This is a clear reverse gear to the gains of devolution noting that ECDE is a fully devolved function," he said.

On hiring of pre-primary teachers by TSC function, governors said the function should be a preserve of the county governments.

This they said is captured in the High Court ruling in 2016 where it was declared that the function belongs to devolved units.

Governors however agree that Ministry of Education coordinates partners who support the national education function while they coordinate partners supporting the devolved education function.

The governors, said they will not participate in any process that seeks to legislate recommendations contained in the education report.

This means that governors will not attend the proposed meeting called by Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee scheduled for January 16.

"County governments will continue to manage both the institutions and human resources for the constitutionally assigned functions in education and a convening of any developed sector forum will strictly be done between the two levels of government and no other entity," governors said.

Mutai said, it is not late to capture their recommendations since they have not been submitted to Parliament for approval.

"Our expectation is that larger education framework for key stakeholders should be called to continue weighing in and give their input on the same," he said.

Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga called for a conference to validate the report saying it's not an end to itself.

"It's just a recommendation and should remedy itself to what it was asked to do but should not rewrite the Constitution," said Kahiga.

He said the national government has never taken any steps to fund ECDE and the governors have worked hard to transform the institutions.