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Ogamba: Ministry mulls use of drones to cut future cost of exam administration
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba speaks during the launch of the 2025 National Examination Assessments Season on October 3, 2025 at New Mitihani House.
The Ministry of Education is mulling the use of drones in future examinations to cut costs as it disclosed that it has a Sh3.7 billion budget deficit for administration of the ongoing national assessments and examinations.
Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba told the National Assembly’s Committee on Education that the National Treasury has agreed to release a further Sh3.1 billion, thereby reducing the overall budget deficit from Sh6.8 billion to Sh3.723 billion.
He said the Treasury had earlier released Sh5.9 billion for national assessments and examinations whose total budget is Sh12.723 billion.
Mr Ogamba told MPs that the ministry is working on a national policy paper that will allow it to leverage on the use of drone technology to deliver examination papers to surmount annual recurrence of flooding, poor roads and rough terrains that require deployment of helicopters to deliver exams.
“Despite the heavy rains and flooding in some parts of the country, I assure the country that no student will miss to sit their exam. We have helicopters and four-wheel drive vehicles on stand-by and a command centre at the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) to dispatch the choppers and 4WD vehicles as soon as we are notified of any challenges in transportation of examination materials,” he said.
Appearing before the committee chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly to provide the status of preparedness for this year’s examination, Mr Ogamba said Knec is this year undertaking five national examination assessments and examinations, which commenced on October 21, 2025 with an end date of November 21, 2025.
These are the Kenya Primary School Assessment (KPSEA) for Grade 6 learners, the Kenya Intermediate Level Education Assessment (KILEA) for Special Needs Education learners under the stage-based pathway, and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) for Grade 9 learners.
Others are the Kenya Pre-Vocational Level Education Assessment (KPLEA) for Special Needs Learners under the stage-based pathway, and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) for Form Four learners.
“I wish to point out, however, that the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) requires additional budgetary support in order to effectively undertake its mandate,” Mr Ogamba said.
“In September, 2025, the National Treasury communicated the grant of additional funding under Supplementary I, to the tune of Sh3.1 billion. The deficit has therefore been reduced to Sh3.723 billion.”
Cabinet Secretary for Education Julius Ogamba (centre) with Kericho County Director for Education Julius Ingoneshi (right) during the opening of the examination papers at the Litein Sub-County offices in Kericho County on October 27, 2025.
He said that in the current financial year, the Knec’s approved recurrent budget had an allocation of Sh5.9 billion for national assessments and examinations, being Sh3 billion for KCSE, Sh2 billion for KJSEA, Sh900 million for KPSEA, and a nil allocation for School Based Assessment.
“This is against a total requirement of Sh12.723 billion being Sh8.008 billion for KCSE, Sh3.566 billion for KJSEA, Sh1.062 billion for KPSEA, and Sh87.3 billion for School Based Assessment. The deficit is thus Sh6.8 billion,” Mr Ogamba said.
“We have written to the National Treasury to seek an additional budget to address the foregoing deficit.”
Mr Ogamba said the Ministry and Knec will be administering national assessments and examinations to a total of 3,428,729 candidates in 2025 compared to 2,248,189 candidates in 2024, with KJSEA being administered for the first time.
He said 1,298,089 candidates sat for the KPSEA assessments, which ended on Wednesday, while KJSEA, which ends on November 3, 2025, has 1,130,669 candidates.
Mr Ogamba, who was accompanied by Knec chief executive David Njegere, said KILEA, which ended on Wednesday and KPLEA which ends on Thursday has 2,414 and 1,479 candidates respectively.
He said that 996,078 candidates are sitting the KCSE exams in 10,765 examination centres.
“The Council also rationalised container-related needs and purchased 43 new containers in 2025 to address gaps. The Council will therefore administer the 2025 assessments/examinations in 396 sub-counties, using 659 containers, in 642 Distribution Centres.”
He said a total of 342,687 contracted professionals have been engaged in the administration of the assessments and examinations.
Mr Ogamba told lawmakers that Knec will have machine-scored responses, for which reading by the Optical Mark Readers will commence from the end of KJSEA assessments.
He said for the KJSEA and KCSE, the Council anticipates that it will use over 40,000 examiners for other structured question papers. KJSEA has both multiple questions and structured questions.
Mr Ogamba said the Ministry anticipates releasing the KPSEA and KJSEA results by December 2025, and KCSE by January 2026.
He said the Ministry is concluding capitation verification and that already 6,041 schools do not meet the threshold as they have below 40 students.
Mr Ogamba also revealed that 990 schools, out of which 570 are primary schools and 420 are secondary schools, did not submit data on students. He said 29 secondary schools are not in the capitation system yet they registered students for the KCSE exam.
