Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba dropped a bombshell Thursday: the government lost Sh912 million in the third term of 2025 through manipulation of secondary school learners' data.
According to the CS, the number of high school students logged on the National Education Management Information System (Nemis), the online web portal that automates the entire end-to-end management of education data and related administration functions, was inflated by 87,730 learners.
This resulted in the Ministry disbursing funds for 3.35 million learners registered on Nemis, but in actual reality, only 3.26 million learners could be accounted for on the ground.
“The amount of money that may have been lost is Sh912 million in third term only,” said Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba while releasing the School Data Verification Report at the Ministry Headquarters at Jogoo House.
Discrepancies between the data on Nemis and the school-level data as submitted by headteachers were even higher at the primary school level, with the ghost learners found to be at 885,904. However, CS Ogamba told the Nation he did not have the figure of how much funding was lost at this level.
The report has uncovered fraud committed by school heads and MoE officials, but does not indicate how the long it has been going on.
Ironically, junior schools under-reported their enrolment by 543,250. Speaking to Nation on phone, CS Ogamba said that the data for primary and junior schools needs further probe since the two sections are hosted in the same compounds but treated differently.
Following the findings, CS Ogamba has forwarded the names of 20 heads of institution to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for administrative action. However, he did not disclose the affected teachers.
“The schools with the highest variance ranging between 500 to 2,300 are the ones we are taking action on immediately...those are among the first 20 that we are dealing with as we continue taking action against the rest; so it’s an ongoing process,” he said.
Funding for the Free Primary Education, Junior School Education, Free Day Secondary Education and Special Needs Education is allocated strictly based on learner enrolment as captured in the Nemis.
The Ministry of Education disburses the capitation in three tranches of 50 percent in the first term, 30 percent in the second term and 20 per cent in the third term.
“In light of the findings, the Ministry will suspend all unverified learners from resource allocation in order to protect public funds and uphold accountability. Funding for the affected learners will only be restored upon verification,” said Mr Ogamba who was flanked by Basic Education principal secretary Julius Bitok.
