The Ministry of Education has uncovered discrepancies in school data submissions that led to the identification of ghost learners and non-existent schools.
Acting head, ICT directorate within the State Department of Basic Education, Mr Paul Odhiambo, said that by November 10, 2025, all schools that had not received their capitation funds had been verified and cleared for payment.
“We found schools that had submitted data using the wrong format and others that did not submit any data. However, upon closer inspection, we realised some had actually used incorrect identification codes,” said Mr Odhiambo.
He explained that the verification exercise involved three digital links shared with different education officers, heads of institutions and ministry officials.
The first link was sent to school heads to capture institutional bio data, enrolment figures, and GPS coordinates to enable ICT officers to locate the schools digitally.
The second link went to sub-county directors of education, who were tasked with mapping out schools within their jurisdictions.
The third link was domiciled at the Ministry of Education headquarters and accessible to the ICT directorate, the Principal Secretary, the Director-General and other senior officials.
The two field-level links, for school heads and sub-county directors, were filled online but were not synchronised.
“We needed the schools to give us their own enrolments and also to ask the sub-counties to give us their data. We then checked the two sets of data match,” explained the expert.
"If a sub-county director reports that School X has 1,000 learners but the school reports 2,000, that discrepancy triggers a deeper audit and investigation," he added.
He said that if a school appeared in the platform but was missing from the sub-county list, it was flagged for further investigation.
“If the sub-county director of education tells us that school XYZ has 1,000 learners but the school says it has 2,000 learners, that is subject to another interrogation,” said Mr Odhiambo.
Headteachers verify their school enrolment details captured by the Ministry of Education during the 2025 Kepsha Annual Delegates Conference in Mombasa on November 11, 2025.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation Media Group
Where data matched, the verification team proceeded to check whether the institution had previously received any capitation funds and whether the names, bank details, and key identifiers matched those in ministry records.
For learners from Grade Three upwards, the ICT team cross-checked Kenya National Examinations Council assessment numbers against records in the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) and other ministry databases.
“Once the details were confirmed and the school validated as genuine, it was enlisted for capitation,” Mr Odhiambo said.
Core-evaluations included the Unique Identification of Schools against the sub-county list of schools, confirmation of school enrolment against Sub-County Schools Data Aggregates, Unique Identification Coding by Nemis.
Others are identification of capitation listings with previous funding for schools, confirmation of school bank details, Unique Personal Identification and or Assessment Numbers Listing for Learners.
So far, 44, 495 institutions have been cleared for capitation based on enrollment after verification. 4,555 schools have pending payments after submitting wrong data.
Schools below threshold are 5,851 Primary-3,978, Junior-1,706 and Senior–167. However, they were paid based on below-threshold enrolments.
On schools with learner enrolment below 10, Mr Odhiambo said top Ministry of Education officials would give the way forward.
He said 1005 schools in both primary and junior have either submitted their data in the wrong format or have not submitted their data.
He urged schools that had not submitted data to do so. As of November 10, some 244 primary schools had not submitted data, JS are about 102. All secondary schools have been cleared.
This comes at a time when the Ministry of Education is grappling with a major crisis after the audit revealed that 2,145 public primary schools failed to meet the minimum enrolment threshold of 45 learners, raising questions about their sustainability and the efficiency of public spending.
Even more troubling, ten schools across ten counties have been shut down after being found to have no learners, exposing deep systemic failures in school management, monitoring, and data validation.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba during the Kenya Primary School Heads Association Annual Delegates Conference in Mombasa on November 12 2025.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation Media Group
The startling revelations are part of an ongoing nationwide audit of Basic Education institutions aimed at eliminating ghost schools and ensuring that capitation funds are directed only to legitimate institutions.
The audit is expected to significantly reshape how the government allocates resources and manages thousands of schools under the new Comprehensive Schools structure.
