Cash shortfalls threaten school operations – KESSHA
By Wangari Njuguna, July 15, 2025Secondary education is headed for collapse due to inadequate government funding, the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (KESSHA) has warned.
Schools are experiencing a serious financial crisis that requires urgent attention, said KESSHA national chair Willie Kuria.
Speaking in Murang’a, Kuria said delayed government capitation disbursements are severely impacting learning and are likely to compromise the quality of education offered in schools.
Disbursement pattern
He said, despite government promises to release funds, only small amounts are disbursed, barely enough to keep schools running.
Kuria revealed that this year alone, the government has not remitted Ksh18.6 billion, representing the balance for the first and second terms.
“In first term, the government released Ksh8,818 instead of the required Ksh11,700, leaving a deficit of Ksh2,304,” he said.
“For this second term, we have received Ksh3,472, also leaving a balance of Ksh3,202 per student.”
This disbursement pattern, he said, is the worst in four years. Given that this is the longest term in the academic year, inadequate funding is particularly damaging to schools.
“We are even not sure if we will be able to keep the students in school until the set closing date. We might be forced to release them earlier if we don’t receive [more] money from the government,” Kuria added.
He explained that of the Ksh22,144 capitation set for every student annually, part of the money is retained by the Ministry of Education and another portion is deposited for infrastructure, leaving roughly Ksh10,000 for running schools.
“This amount is the same set for capitation back in 2008, almost 20 years ago, and back then the cost of living was relatively low,” he lamented.
Kuria described the situation as critical, noting that many areas are affected when adequate funding is unavailable.
Day schools and special-needs schools are bearing the brunt of the crisis.
“These institutions solely rely on the government for funding, so when they don’t receive any money, everything comes to a standstill,” he said.
Kuria proposed the introduction of cost sharing between the government and parents to help manage the crisis.
“We are proposing that parents be paying a certain amount of money and the government give its share so as to keep the schools running,” he said.
“Sometimes we turn to parents and request them to give us money, but we can’t do it every time we have a shortfall because it has become habitual for the government to fail to remit funds.”
Hide-and-seek
Abdinoor Haji, KESSHA secretary general, said schools are on their knees and that even feeding students is a problem.
“Principals are now playing hide-and-seek with suppliers because they owe them a lot of money,” Haji said.
“Some schools have been forced to lay off board of management teachers because there is not enough money to pay them.”
The inconveniences caused by a lack of funds, he said, are compromising the quality of education for learners.