The Government will spend KES 2.5bn to pay examination fees for primary and secondary school candidates each year, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said.
President Kenyatta said the Government has also increased funding to education, with secondary school education receiving KES 28bn this financial year.
Free Primary Education, he disclosed, has been allocated KES 13.8bn, an increase of KES 4 bn from the previous allocation.
The President made the announcement at Ruai Primary School in Nairobi when he launched an early literacy programme with a declaration that education is the seed for social and economic transformation.
Affirming the Government’s commitment to promoting quality education, the President said it was for this reason that Kenya has ratified many international and regional conventions.
“Key amongst them are the Millennium Development Goals, Education For All, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child,” he said.
President Kenyatta spoke when he launched the nationwide implementation of Tusome Early Literacy Programme, a basic education initiative geared towards improving reading skills of 5.4 million Kenyan Children.
He said education is not only a basic right recognised in law, but a “cardinal aspiration of every individual in the country.”
President Kenyatta said successive governments recognized, shared and supported this aspiration and the Jubilee Government is no exception.
The Head of State said Kenya’s robust support for various domestic and international initiatives aimed at the attainment of universal, high quality education was a result of the national consensus on the importance of education.
The President, however, said for education to deliver national socio-economic transformation, it must be universally accessible and capable of empowering the people.
(PIX: PSCU).
He said that the Government will also review the policy and legal framework governing education.
“The aim is to eradicate wastage and inefficiency associated with conventional curricula, and embrace quality and progressive teaching,” he said.
President Kenyatta said education is a proven way of reducing poverty and guaranteeing the path to wealth creation.
“Education is a guarantor of cohesion, integration, stability and peace. Our investment in education is a strategic investment in a brilliant future for our country,” he added.
The President pointed out that the Government wants to improve the human resource competitiveness by ensuring Kenyans maintain leadership in science, technology, research and development.
“It is critical, therefore, that our education meets the demands of our time right from early childhood to post-graduate and vocational learning,” he added.
President Kenyatta said the Kenya Vision 2030 aspires to direct national policies and programmes towards the realisation of a competitive, industrialised and knowledge-based economy.
He pointed out that a new Kenya requires new ideas and fresh thinking and that technology is the way of the future..
(PSCU)
