Education vote up by 9.2 per cent to finance Competency-Based system
Bernard Gitau @benagitau
The total expenditure for the Ministry of Education is expected to increase by 9.2 per cent to Sh496.8 billion in 2019/20 up from Sh455.1 billion in 2018/19.
Releasing the Economic Survey 2020 yesterday, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said the increase is due to the implementation of the new education system, the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
According to the Treasury, education sector recurrent expenditure is expected to go up by 9.4 per cent from Sh428.2 billion in 2018/19 to Sh468.4 billion in 2019/20.
The development expenditure is expected to increase by 5.5 per cent from Sh26.9 billion in 2018/19 to Sh28.3 billion in 2019/20.
The recurrent expenditure for the Teachers Service Commission is expected to increase by 4.9 per cent to Sh252.7 billion in 2019/20, accounting for 53.9 per cent of the recurrent budget of the Ministry.
CBC has covered pre-primary while primary school Grades One, Two and Three were rolled out nationally in 2019. Grade 4 is scheduled to be rolled out this year.
The government has also started the implementation of the 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary school policy.
Total development expenditure for the ministry is expected to increase by 5.5 per cent from Sh26.9 billion in 2018/19 to Sh28.3 billion in 2019/20.
In the last five years, the survey shows the total number of schools reduced by 2.5 per cent to 89,337.
The number of primary and secondary schools declined by 14.7 per cent and 8.2 per cent to 32,344 and 10,463 respectively.
In 2019, while that of pre-primary schools increased by 10.0 per cent to 46,530 in the same period.
The total number of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions increased by 10.3 per cent to 2,191 in 2019.
The number of universities remained constant at 63 during the review period.
Enrollment in primary schools declined by 4.5 per cent to 10.1 million in 2019, while that of secondary schools grew by 10.8 per cent to 3.3 million in 2019 from 2.9 million in 2018.
Enrollment of teacher trainees decreased by 25.1 per cent to 31,737, while that of TVET institutions went up by 19.7 per cent to 430,598 in 2019.
University enrollment is expected to decline by 1.9 per cent to 509,473 in 2019/20 from 519,462 in 2018/19.
