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The total expenditure for the education sector is expected to grow by 7.1 per cent to Sh548.2 billion in the Financial Year 2022/23, the economic survey 2023 report has shown.

According to the report, recurrent expenditure for the sector is expected to increase by 3.4 per cent to Sh515.8 billion in 2022/23, while the development expenditure is to increase to Sh32.4 billion in 2022/23.

“Total expenditure for the education sector is expected to grow by 7.1 per cent from Sh511.9 billion in 2021/22 to Sh548.2 billion in 2022/23 financial year.  Total recurrent expenditure is expected to increase to Sh515.8 billion in 2022/23 from Sh498.8 billion in 2021/22 financial year,” states the report.

The survey has also shown that the Ministry’s total development expenditure is expected to more than double from Sh13.1 billion in 2021/22 to Sh32.4 billion in 2022/23 owing to infrastructure development.

This is especially due to construction of additional classrooms and science laboratories as well as purchase of furniture in readiness of the large number of learners in Junior Secondary Education (JSS).

“Development expenditure for Department of Early Learning and Basic Education is expected to greatly increase from Sh6.9 billion in 2021/22 to Sh23.5 billion in 2022/23 and will account for 72.5 per cent of the total development expenditure in the review period,” the report shows.

Also this financial year, development expenditure for Teachers Service Commission and all the Ministry’s state departments will increase except for that of Post Training and Skills Development, which has no development expenditure.

Also during the period under review, recurrent expenditure for TSC is expected to rise by 2.8 per cent to Sh297.6 billion in 2022/23. Recurrent expenditure for department of University Education is expected to grow by 7.3 per cent to Sh102.7 billion in the same period while that of Vocational and Technical Training is expected to decrease by 1.6 per cent from Sh19.3 billion in 2021/22 to Sh19 billion in 2022/23 financial year.

The report has also shown that the total number of schools declined by 2.7 per cent from 83,747 in 2021 school year to 81,454 in 2022 on account of decline in number of pre-primary and private primary schools.

“Enrolment in pre-primary 1 and 2 increased marginally to about to 2.86 million in 2022 from 2.84 million in 2021 school year,” the report states.

Similarly, the total enrolment in primary schools rose by 0.8 per cent to 10.4 million in 2022 while that of secondary schools grew by 5.4 per cent to 3.9 million in 2022.

In 2021 and 2022, there was near gender parity in primary school enrolment for learners in Grades 1 – 6 as well as in Standard 7 and 8.

According to the statistics, there were 10.2 million learners in primary in 2021 out of which 5.04 million were girls and 5.24 million were boys while the number rose in 2022 to 10.36 million, with 5.2 million boys and 5.12 million girls.