Students to get personal numbers to curb cheating

All learners in public schools are set to get personal numbers to track academic progress and funding.

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i said the Government could be losing billions of shillings sent to schools annually.

He said some school managers conspire to steal Government resources under their management and noted that his ministry was initiating plans to end the looting.

The CS also said it was difficult to tell the exact number of students in public universities as data provided by the institutions may not be accurate.

"When I came into the Ministry of Education, I asked how many students are in public universities and nobody had the answer yet we send government resources there annually," said Dr Matiang'i.

"Let me not ask where the money for module two is because that is for another day," said Matiang'i.

He said each child should be given a personal number to track the level of funding and to also enable tracking of academic progress.

"Each learner shall be given a unique personal identifier (UPI) from nursery school to university," said Matiang'i.

"For the short time I have visited schools, I have seen the horrors in schools. Free Primary Education (FPE) and resources being given to schools are not well spent," he said.

The CS said for the last two years alone, some Sh9 billion has been disbursed to secondary schools for buying textbooks yet the pupil-book ratio is still high.

"In some schools, the pupil-book ratio is 7:1. Where does the money go?" said Matiang'i.

A Ministry of Education audit released last year revealed that the Government could be losing millions of shillings annually, in capitation, through inflated enrolment figures by primary and secondary school heads.

The Basic Education Statistical Booklet (2014) report returned a glaring mismatch of figures sent to the Ministry of Education against actual numbers based on census.

Statistics from the ministry indicate the Government remits some Sh28 billion annually to all the public secondary schools and another Sh14 billion is sent to primary schools.

Sources at the ministry told The Standard that school heads could be handling up to Sh300 billion annually.

"Some of these monies are from donors and community contributions for various projects, fees paid by parents and the annual capitation by the Government," said a senior ministry official.

In addition to the capitation, secondary schools collect another Sh116.6 billion in fees from parents annually.

The 2013/2014 financial appraisals for the Ministry of Education said the Government could be losing millions of shillings in public schools through inflated enrolment figures.