Ministry to review use of free schooling funds

The Education ministry will set up a team to investigate the usage of free primary education and day secondary education funds received by schools since inception.

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said a multisectoral team would be set up to investigate the use of the resources.

He said that the government had injected Sh300 billion to finance both the free primary and secondary education, adding that Kenya was seventh among the countries that spend the largest chunk of their Gross Domestic Product on education.

“I would rather not be Cabinet Secretary for Education instead of presiding over theft of resources,” he said.

The Cabinet Secretary made the remarks at Mary Hill Girls during Prize Giving Day on Friday, where he was flanked by the Head of Catholic Church in Kenya John Cardinal Njue, the Principal Secretary for Basic Education, Dr Belio Kipsang and the institution’s Principal, Ms Imelda Barasa.

Dr Matiang’i said that the funds being channelled towards the programme were sufficient to provide an ecosystem fit to provide quality education at an affordable cost.

But regretted the lack of integrity in the management of school finances, which has seen part of the funds looted by officers involved.

He said that although the government had sent billions of shillings to secondary schools under the Free Day Secondary Education programme, a number of schools had not attained the desired 1:1 student to book ratio.