The Lower Eastern Times Opening The Third Eye
Related Articles
The education sector has once again received the highest funding in the national budget, with the Kenya Kwanza administration allocating Sh702.7 billion for the 2025/26 financial year—equivalent to 28% of the total Sh4.29 trillion budget.
Click here to join our WhatsApp Channel
This represents an increase of Sh44.5 billion from the Sh656.6 billion allocated in the 2024/25 fiscal year, which accounted for 27.6% of a Sh3.92 trillion budget. In 2023/24, the sector received Sh628.6 billion, up from Sh544.4 billion in 2022/23.
The increased funding is intended to support key areas such as capitation for primary, junior secondary, TVET, and universities, as well as pay for educators and expand learning facilities.
While presenting the budget in Parliament on June 12, Treasury CS John Mbadi revealed that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will receive Sh387.2 billion—an increase of Sh29 billion from the previous year’s allocation of Sh358.2 billion.
This includes Sh7.2 billion for hiring intern teachers and Sh980 million for training educators on the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system.
In the 2024/25 budget, Sh13.4 billion had been allocated to convert 46,000 Junior Secondary School intern teachers to permanent and pensionable roles. At the time, Sh1.3 billion was also set aside for CBE training.
For 2025/26, free primary education will receive Sh7 billion, junior schools Sh28.9 billion in capitation, and free day secondary education Sh51.9 billion. In comparison, the 2024/25 budget had set aside Sh9.1 billion, Sh30.7 billion, and Sh61.9 billion for the same categories respectively.
CS Mbadi also proposed Sh5.9 billion to fund national exams. Although no money has been allocated specifically for exam waivers this year, he assured that all candidates will sit their exams free of charge. However, he cautioned that the government may need to introduce cost-sharing measures in future due to a projected revenue shortfall of Sh970 billion.
He emphasized the need to assess the cost-effectiveness of national exams and consider alternative funding options that maintain quality and integrity without overburdening public finances.
Last year, Sh5 billion had been allocated for exam fee waivers.
The school feeding program has been allocated Sh3 billion, while Sh4 billion will fund the Technical, Vocational, Educational Training and Entrepreneurship project. TVET institutions have received Sh30.7 billion, same as in 2023/24.
Other allocations include:
- Sh1.7 billion for infrastructure development in primary and secondary schools
- Sh1.4 billion for construction and equipping of TVET and vocational training centers
- Sh13.3 billion for the Kenya Primary Education Equity in Learning programme (up from Sh11.1 billion)
- Sh2.3 billion for the Kenya Secondary School Quality Improvement Project (up from Sh1.5 billion)
- Sh993 million for Research, Science, and Technology Innovation
- Sh41.5 billion to the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb), up from Sh35.9 billion last year
- Sh16.9 billion for university student scholarships
- Sh7.7 billion for TVET student capitation
Although CS Mbadi did not mention the Digital Literacy Programme or ICT integration in secondary schools in his statement, the 2024/25 budget had allocated Sh360 million to these initiatives.
