About 1.2 million children enrolled in primary and secondary schools are either overage or underage, a new report says.
The Socio-Economic Atlas of Kenya that depicts the national population register says 900,000 secondary school students fall outside the official age range of secondary school education.
There are 1.72 million learners in secondary schools today.
"Of these, the vast majorities are older (18 to 24 years). Hence one out of every two students in Kenya's 6,491 secondary schools is aged 18 or older," reads the report launched on Monday.
The study says the official age for secondary school education is between 14 and 17 years.
Another 300,000 children do not fall within the standard age for primary school. The document indicates that the official age of primary school-going children is between six and 13 years.
"However, there are children that fall outside this range who are also attending primary schools. Some are younger than six but the majority are older than 13 years," reads the document.
There are about 9.34 million children in primary schools.
"This means about three of every 10 primary school students are either underage, or most often, overage. This gives rise to primary school gross attendance of 110.5 per cent," reads the report.
The study attributes the huge number of overage learners in primary schools to late enrollment, interrupted studies (due to financial problems) and class repetition.
And for secondary schools, the report attributes the trend to carrying over of overage children from primary schools and delays in starting secondary school after completing primary education.
The revelations come days after the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) raised the red flag over the increasing number of underage candidates sitting the exams.
The council noted that last year alone, over 20,000 children were registered to write Standard Eight exams. This figure, according to Knec, is an increase from 19,751 in 2012.
A study conducted by the agency revealed underage children perform poorly in national examinations but said Kenya was on track in achieving universal education.
West Pokot and Turkana counties have the biggest number of learners falling outside the official school-going age for both primary and secondary education.
Meanwhile, Murang'a and Nyeri counties hold the best school attendance record of primary school-going children, a new report shows.
"Kenya's counties display a gender parity index of less than 1.0. The lowest index is found in Samburu, where girls are 18 per cent less likely to attend primary school than boys," reads the document.
