House team calls for Nemis audit after systemic flaws

MPs have demanded a thorough audit of the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) after it emerged the system is marred by systemic loopholes.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) even doubted whether the government is certain of the number of learners in schools after admission by the ministry that third parties could get access to the students data and even delete records.

The revelation stemmed from concerns raised by the Auditor General Nancy Gathungu on the functionality of the system.

In her 2022-23 financial year, Gathungu raised queries on the system especially on the fluctuating records captured in the system.

The Auditor General also flagged the ownership of the system.

Lugari MP Nabii Nabwera claimed the system has a way of reducing number of students enrolled in a system to the disadvantage of school heads especially during capitation.

“What happens with Nemis, many schools heads are complaining. For instance, you find a school has 600 students in the evening and in the morning the number has reduced to 200,” Nabwera said.

This, Nabwera noted is a threat in the management of capitation.

Public schools are allocated capitation funds relying entirely on the data of learners captured in the Nemis.

“The state department does not know the number of learners in schools in the country,” added Funyula MP Oundo Ojiambo.

Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok while dismissing the claims put the number of learners at 12.6 million in primary, junior and secondary schools in the country.

However, head of Kenya Education Management System (Kemis) the successor of Nemis Fredrick Mujumba, admitted to the system flows confessing infiltration of data by third parties.

“We have noticed that some of these learners have been deleted from various points, just not necessarily at the school level. You even get some cases where a cyber cafe has removed learners because they were not paid for the work that they did,” Mujumba told the committee chaired by Butere MP Tindi Mwale.

If the revelation by Mujumba is anything to go by then it means the government could not be having actual records of learners in school.

PS Bitok however maintained the ministry is aware of all the learners in schools explaining that apart from the Nemis they also rely on manual records filed by subcounty directors of Education.

“We know the number of learners because we have them,” Bitok said.

According to the PS, there are 6.4 million learners in primary schools, 2.9 million in Junior Secondary Schools and 3.3 million in Senior Secondary Schools across the country.

Bitok told the committee that the government has embarked on upgrade of the Nemis system to Kemis to rectify some of the challenges identified in the Taskforce of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms.

“Those are some of the things that do come and there are things that we want to address through this new Kemis system, so that we have a clear identity of the learner, not done by ourselves, but by the people who know how to identify this number,” Bitok said.