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Education CS Julius Ogamba, when he appeared before MPs during the 2026 Legislative Retreat for Members of the National Assembly, at Lake Naivasha Resort in Naivasha, Nakuru County, on January 28, 2026.
The Cabinet Secretary for Education Julius Ogamba will this week unmask principals of schools and Ministry of Education officials who registered non-existent schools and learners to steal billions of shillings meant for free education programmes.
Mr Ogamba yesterday told the Nation that his office has finalised compiling a report that is based on a nationwide audit carried out last year to verify the number of learners in schools.
He will table the report before Parliament before the end of this week, he said.
“I’ll confirm the date tomorrow [Wednesday],” he said.
After release of the report, investigative agencies are expected to swing into action to investigate, arrest and prosecute those implicated in the scandal.
Although Mr Ogamba did not reveal the exact number of ‘ghost’ learners and schools, other sources familiar with the exercise told the Nation that the figure is “shocking”.
The stealing is thought to have gone on for years denying legitimate learners adequate funding for their education.
Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok.
"The Ministry of Education has completed the countrywide verification exercise. We will release the report this week and stern action will be taken against culprits who include principals and officers involved in the irregularities and fraud. Heads must roll. We will table the whole report before the National Assembly for further action in certain sections. The report will also be shared with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) for further investigations," said Mr Ogamba.
The CS was at the time speaking during a retreat for MPs in Naivasha last week. The report is expected to include names of schools, principals and other officials implicated in the fraudulent inflation of enrolment in public schools.
“Once we release it action will be taken against all the officers and principals involved in any irregularities. We will be working with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to ensure that there is redistribution of the teachers to the schools that do not have enough teachers of various subjects to ensure we do not disadvantage any of our learners,” said Mr Ogamba.
The government runs the Free Primary Education (FPE) where each learner is funded at the rate of Sh1,420 per year, junior school (Sh15,042) and Free Day Secondary Education (FDSE) at Sh22,244 per learner annually.
The Nation understands that the fraudsters also targeted registering fake learners with alleged special needs since the government funds special need education (SNE) at higher rate of Sh57,244 per learner in secondary school per year.
By November last year, Mr Ogamba said the audit had uncovered 87,000 ‘ghost’ learners across the country.
"We have so far uncovered 87,000 ghost learners in public schools and about 10 schools across ten counties have been found with no learners at all," Mr Ogamba stated on November 17 2025.
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The audit was conducted since September 5 2025 to clean up school data and seal loopholes that led to stealing of cash meant for learners in public schools. The report will help establish a comprehensive database of all existing schools and students in the country, according to CS Ogamba.
“You have officers in your ministry in every county whose duty is to maintain and continuously update school records and submit them to your ministry. Public funds have been wired to non-existent schools for non-existent learners. You must take decisive action against those found culpable," National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula.
The audit relied on three digital platforms: one for schools to upload institutional bio data, enrolment numbers, and GPS coordinates; a second for sub-county offices to map schools; and a third at ministry headquarters to oversee the process.
National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi (left) with Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba when they appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Education at Bunge Tower in Nairobi on July 24, 2025.
The field-level systems were not fully synchronised, requiring enrolment data from schools to be compared with sub-county records. Any inconsistencies between the two prompted further audits and investigations.
Verification checks included confirming school identification numbers, enrolment totals, Unique Identification Codes, bank account details and cross-referencing learner assessment numbers with national examination and ministry databases.
Revelations of inflation of enrolment figures, has exposed systemic weaknesses in monitoring, with only 600 quality assurance officers and 200 auditors at the MoE overseeing more than 30,000 basic learning institutions in the country.
A special audit on funding education submitted to the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee (PAC), last year, exposed wanton theft of funds for primary and secondary schools, through ‘ghost’ schools and learners. It was done by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu and flagged 33 non-existent schools that had received millions of shillings from 2020/2021 to 2023/ 2024.
Over funding across all school levels was more than Sh3.7 billion, largely attributed to inflated students' numbers. The audit was prompted by persistent discrepancies between the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) data and the physical headcounts in schools.
However, school heads, speaking during their Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association (Kepsha) conference in Mombasa last year, said it was wrong for the MoE to shift blame to administrators when its officials are deployed in every county and sub-county to monitor schools.
“It is absurd that head teachers are being blamed for inflating enrolment numbers yet MoE officials are everywhere. How can a head teacher inflate numbers without approval from MOE? Who owns National Education Management Information System (Nemis)?” asked a head teacher from Nairobi.
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