US gives Kenya Ksh3.2B to fund education
By Arnold Ngure, May 23, 2024
The US government has awarded Kenya Ksh3.2 billion through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support education in the country.
According to a statement shared during President William Ruto’s third day of the US visit, the Ministry of Education will receive the funds for the Kenya Primary Literacy Program (KPLP).
The program intends to focus on learners between grades one and three to facilitate educational activities and staff requirements involved.
The new program seeks to reintroduce digital literacy in the formative years of schooling as an enabler of the competency-based education curriculum.
“USAID intends to provide $24.5 million for the Kenya Primary Literacy Program (KPLP), a new nationwide early-grade literacy activity implemented in close partnership with Kenya’s Ministry of Education,” the statement read.
While the more recent number of primary school teachers stands at 223,296, the new program will see this number grow by more than half the current to 390,000 by 2024.
This comes just hours after the Ministry of Education rolled out a comprehensive census to map all facilities in schools and students’ biometrics.
The 2024 school census will cover all learning institutions including those providing basic education such as pre-primary, primary, junior, secondary schools and special needs education units for both public and private institutions as well as all international schools.
The census will also look into the facilities in the school including members of staff, and equipment in the institutions among other demographics.
Cash crunch
Kenya’s secondary school heads have been raising concerns that some critical activities in the calendars would be adversely affected by delays in the release of capitation.
The school heads have also decried challenges in paying suppliers, which they were also afraid would compromise the quality of education, with day secondary schools, which fully depend on capitation, bearing the biggest brunt.
Also, the Kenya National Union of Teachers warned that school programmes could grind to a halt owing to delayed disbursement and demanded immediate disbursement to avert a crisis in schools.