Billions in, yet education woes remain

Four years after pledging to transform education, the sector remains trapped in a cycle of policy experimentation, funding shortfalls and unfulfilled commitments.

On Thursday, as Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi delivered what could be President William Ruto’s first term and final budget in charge of government finances, the reality fell far short of the promises made.

The education sector has now received a record Sh784.46 billion allocation, the highest in the country’s history.

Yet, despite this unprecedented funding, the problems plaguing the sector remain largely unchanged, with turbulence still rocking the desired reform agenda.

During his campaigns, President Ruto painted an optimistic picture, promising sweeping reforms to fix long-standing challenges in education.

Among his key proposals was an increase in capitation to primary and secondary schools to ensure adequate funding for Free Primary Education and Free Day Secondary Education, as well as universities.

But four years on, those pledges remain largely unmet, even with a record budget.

His administration has been on an on-and-off trial-and-error approach in the sector, as inherited challenges continue to define it.

In this period, the President has failed to fully fund free primary and day secondary education at the levels required for the programmes to function effectively, a gap he had explicitly promised to close.

In the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) report, the government committed to increasing capitation for primary schools from Sh1,420 to Sh2,300 per learner.

At the same time, it pledged to address persistent funding shortfalls in secondary schools.

Capitation for secondary education is officially set at Sh22,000 per student. However, since 2016, under the previous administration of Uhuru Kenyatta, the government has consistently fallen short of this target, with schools receiving between Sh15,000 and Sh17,000.

Bridging this gap and restoring full capitation to Sh22,000 was a central promise of President Ruto’s administration, one that remains unfulfilled four years later.

Primary school funding has not changed. 

Despite marginal budget increases over the years—from Sh22.9 billion in 2022/23 to Sh26.5 billion in 2025/26—the capitation per learner has stagnated at about Sh1,400, far below the promised level.

The government has sustained the programme but failed to expand it as pledged.

In effect, funding for both Free Primary and Day Secondary Education remains largely unchanged from the previous administration, exposing a glaring disconnect between what the President promised and the reality.

But that is not all. In higher education, the controversial university funding model—a flagship policy that has been repeatedly revised amid legal challenges, public backlash and growing doubts about its sustainability—has come under scrutiny. 

Initially introduced in 2023 as a student-centred system, the model replaced block funding with a structure based on scholarships, loans and household contributions.

It was designed to ensure that the most vulnerable students could access university education at little or no cost. That promise has not materialised.

The model’s first version, built around four funding bands that promised to fully fund the most vulnerable, was quickly abandoned.

A revised five-band structure followed, assigning varying levels of state support based on household income.

However, this faced major opposition from students and parents for making university education significantly more expensive.

It was later struck down by the courts for being discriminatory and unconstitutional, leading to further revision. 

What remains today is a largely opaque system that assesses students on a 100-point scale, with little public clarity on how funding decisions are made.

The effects of the new model are now being felt across the country, with a new Treasury report showing that university enrolment, which had been steadily rising, has sharply declined.

According to the report, the number of students in universities has dropped by close to 100,000 in the last three years.

In 2023/2024, the report shows there were 680,768 students in universities, but this fell to 547,092 in 2024/25.

Treasury attributes the decline largely to the new funding and placement model, which has pushed many students towards Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions.

“The decline was largely attributed to the introduction of new university funding and placement models which have redirected some students towards Tvet institutions,” the report reads.

University debt

At the same time, university debt continues to grow—from Sh60 billion when Ruto came to office to more than Sh100 billion currently.

This ballooning debt has left at least 11 institutions technically insolvent and at risk of closure due to unremitted statutory deductions and persistent operational deficits.

When he took office in 2022, some 39 public universities were already weighed down by chronic underfunding and mounting debts.

So severe was the situation that his predecessor, former President Uhuru Kenyatta, had imposed a freeze on the establishment of new universities to curb unchecked expansion.

Ruto came in promising to stop the bleeding, fix university finances, streamline funding and restore stability.

But three years later, the numbers tell a different story.

Instead of slowing expansion, the government has rolled out new institutions, including Bomet University, chartered in 2026, and Nyandarua and Kabarnet university colleges established in 2025.

The administration also launched the Open University of Kenya in 2023, the country’s first fully online public university; the National Intelligence and Research University, chartered in November 2024; and licensed the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 2022.

But amid the establishment of new institutions, data presented to MPs shows that financial strain inside universities has reached alarming levels.

Egerton University is the most indebted with Sh25.5 billion, followed by the University of Nairobi (Sh16.99 billion), Technical University of Kenya (Sh14.13 billion), Kenyatta University (Sh12.79 billion) and Moi University (Sh10.38 billion).

The debt accrued is a result of unremitted statutory deductions, including Sh26.34 billion in Pay As You Earn, Sh33.21 billion in pension, gratuity and insurance, and Sh18.63 billion in Sacco deductions.

Part-time lecturers are owed Sh4.69 billion, suppliers Sh4.17 billion, while banks and other lenders are also exposed.

In April, Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala told Parliament that 11 universities are now technically insolvent, meaning they owe more than they own, and warned that the situation could worsen. 

“We previously had 22 technically insolvent institutions, but that number has now improved to 11. However, if underfunding persists, more universities risk falling into insolvency,” she said while appearing before Parliament.

Inyangala explained that the debt crisis in universities is a result of funding shortfalls by the government.

The funding shortfall was attributed to the old funding model, also known as Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC), which was discontinued in 2023.

By the time it was discontinued, universities were only receiving 47 per cent of the funding they expected. This means that for every Sh100 the institution expected, they received only Sh47.

To address the challenge, President Ruto introduced the new funding model, otherwise referred to as the student-centred funding model, in 2023 as the solution to the sector’s long-standing problems.

The model was meant to align funding with students’ needs and finally end the cycle of underfunding that crippled the previous DUC system.

Instead, it is now showing signs of strain, with the very underfunding it was meant to resolve now re-emerging.

Universities currently require Sh29.55 billion to fully fund students under the model, but the government has allocated only Sh16.92 billion in the 2025/2026 financial year.

That leaves a funding gap of Sh12.63 billion, meaning institutions are operating at just 57 per cent of required funding.

Even with a proposed supplementary allocation of Sh1.5 billion, funding will only rise to about 62 per cent, still far below what is required.

The shortfall has been worsening each year. In the first year of the model, the government met 100 per cent of funding requirements.

That dropped to about 64 per cent in the second year and has now fallen to 57 per cent, the lowest level so far.

At the same time, student numbers have continued to rise sharply.

Currently, 437,648 students are funded under the model across three cohorts: 122,634 admitted in 2023, 134,889 in 2024, and 180,125 in 2025.

A fourth cohort of 270,000 students is expected later this year, which will pile further pressure on already strained resources.

“The budget allocation for 2025/26 remained the same as the previous financial year despite the entry of a new cohort of 180,125 students,” Inyangala told MPs while appearing before the National Assembly Education Committee.

Inyangala attributed the crisis to a “mismatch between projected and actual disbursements.” 

The situation is equally troubling in Tvet institutions. Even as enrolment in TVETs rises, reports of students dropping out due to funding constraints have become increasingly common, raising questions about the government’s ability to sustain its push for skills-based education.

It has emerged that fees at public TVET institutions have nearly doubled over the last year, triggering low enrolment and rising dropout rates, as technical colleges have become more expensive than public universities.

Trainers in technical colleges have raised alarm over the sharp increase in costs, which they say is undermining completion rates and locking out learners from poor and middle-income households.

The Kenya Union of Technical and Vocational Education Trainers (KUTVET) says tuition fees under the modular curriculum introduced in May 2025 have risen from about Sh56,000 to Sh105,000 per year.