The government has allocated Sh2 billion for construction of classrooms to host junior secondary students as the government fast tracks the implementation of key projects for the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
The money will boost the government’s plans to construct new 10,000 classrooms by next year.
CBC emerged as one of the priority funding areas in the supplementary budget estimates submitted to Parliament by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani last week.
The revised budget raised allocation for spending by government ministries by Sh126.3 billion, which is a 3.3 per cent jump of the national budget from the original plan presented in April last year, a move that is set to further widen the budget deficit.
“The supplementary estimates have been prepared to take care of post Covid-19 related interventions, drought-related expenditure, payment of pending bills, salary adjustments, 2022 General Election preparedness, CBC infrastructure, changes in development partners funded projects and rationalisation of budget,” Mr Yatani told MPs.
The allocation for construction of classrooms is a significant boost to schools as there are 1.4 million Grade Six learners – now in Grade Five – who are expected to transit to junior secondary in January next year.
This comes as the Ministry of Education expressed concern over the transition due to failure by the government to allocate funds for tuition for the learners in the 2022/23 financial year.
Appearing before the National Assembly’s Committee on Education and Research last week, Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Jwan and his Implementation of Curriculum Reforms counterpart Fatuma Chege said the roll-out could be paralysed if the government fails to budget for tuition.
“No capitation has been allocated to go to junior secondary students in the budget estimates for the 2022/23 financial year,” said Dr Jwan.
Meanwhile, Treasury also allocated an additional Sh53 million to building information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in schools to support assessment of learners under CBC , and Sh1.01 billion for improvement of infrastructure in secondary schools.
Treasury has also given a total of Sh3.09 billion to early learning and basic education programmes in the mini budget, a 3 per cent increase from the estimates submitted to Parliament in June last year.
This includes Sh2.65 billion that has been allocated to primary schools to provide meals to learners.
“Increase is on account of funds to cater for the school feeding programme and addition on account of donor commitment,” said Mr Yatani.
Treasury has also allocated an additional Sh8.58 billion to universities, which will help to address the biting financial crisis in institutions of higher learning.
Recent reports by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu paint a grim picture of public universities in dire financial straits, heavily relying on government funding and expensive short-term loans to finance operations.
Many of the universities’ liabilities have far outstripped their assets, rendering them technically insolvent, thus requiring urgent restructuring measures to turn around their fortunes.
