THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN KENYA

My fellow Kenyans,

Under the Ruto government, education, like healthcare, is in deep crisis. Transitions between education levels are chaotic, leaving learners anxious and families uncertain. We face a shortage of over 100,000 teachers. Focus and quality have deteriorated, and infrastructure gaps persist across the country.

This crisis is not because Kenya cannot afford to educate its children. We can. Reports of KSh 1.1 billion lost to “phantom learners” prove the problem is not scarcity but the siphoning of public funds. The new university funding model is a debt trap that shifts the burden from the state to parents, violating the spirit of social and economic rights.

Kenya’s education crisis is not accidental. It is the predictable outcome of a government that has lost fiscal discipline, surrendered common sense, and chosen debt servicing, corruption, and political extravagance over investment in human capital. The situation has been sharply escalated by unplanned, hurried, and corrupt implementation of unnecessary reforms.

Just recently, we learned of a drastic reduction in secondary school capitation - from approximately KSh 22,244 to nearly KSh 12,870 per student, a staggering 45% cut. This comes at the same time the national government plans to spend over KSh 1.9 trillion annually on debt servicing - more than 75% of total revenues.

This is not an unavoidable sacrifice. It is a choice. A choice to prioritize debt accumulated through corruption, inflated contracts, and fiscal recklessness over classrooms, teachers, and the future of Kenyan children.

Kenya does not lack resources. Our resources are being misallocated, misappropriated, and wasted at scale. The Auditor-General’s 2023–2024 report shows that hundreds of millions, possibly billions of shillings allocated to education were lost or stolen through irregular and illegal conduct. Scholarship fraud, procurement scams, and stalled or abandoned projects have become normalized.

This education financing framework is a failure of both policy and morality. It reflects a regime in such moral decay that it consumes its own children’s future, from primary school through university. Education is not a favour from the state. It is a constitutional right and a national duty.

Under an Ukatiba government, public funds will follow learners’ needs, not the greed of officials. Education financing will be transparent, predictable, and accountable. Money meant for children will reach classrooms; not disappear into bureaucracy or patronage networks.

Teachers remain overstretched, under-supported, and excluded from reform design. No education system can outperform the quality, morale, and preparedness of its teachers. Respecting teachers is not optional; it is foundational. Teachers must be paid well and paid on time.

Infrastructure gaps remain unforgivable. Overcrowded classrooms, inadequate laboratories, and insufficient learning materials undermine learning. Poverty, geography, disability, and gender still determine a child’s chances. Today, there are classrooms in Dandora with 160 pupils. Shockingly, in 2026, some children are still learning under trees.

This is indefensible—but predictable—from a regime that treats corruption as a style of governance. Ukatiba demands that no child be left behind because of circumstances they did not choose.

While we celebrate excellence, we must reject a system that produces massive failure and only a small elite that survives through the eye of a corrupt needle. We have prepared evidence showing an abnormal grading curve that produces more “Ds” than the “Cs” expected in a healthy system.

Education must not be measured by grades alone, but by learning outcomes. Too many learners move through the system without acquiring critical thinking or life skills. A system obsessed with grades is escapist and irrational.

Access must mean more than enrollment. It must mean retention, progression, and completion with dignity. It must mean parents no longer starting school terms with fear and despair. It must mean children never feeling that their only escape from failure is self-harm.

The government speaks of “Digital Literacy” and “Silicon Savannah” while only 48% of public junior schools have basic laboratories and many lack electricity. Innovation cannot thrive on empty promises.

We offer a better plan, anchored firmly in the right to education as guaranteed by the Katiba. Technology will be a tool for inclusion, not inequality. Digital learning cannot replace teachers, classrooms, or basic resources. It will only succeed where there is infrastructure, teacher training, local relevance, and safeguards for equity.

My government will prioritize the “last mile” of technology, ensuring that a child in Mandera has the same opportunities as a child in Nairobi.

My fellow Kenyans, Kenya needs an education reset grounded in constitutionalism and common sense. We must end this shambolic CBC and rescue our children from reforms imposed on citizens whose leaders educate their own children in private schools.

Education is our sacred promise to every Kenyan child. A nation that neglects education mortgages its future.

Thank you.

May God bless you, and may God bless the Republic of Kenya.

14th January 2026