Auditor General Nancy Gathungu /ENOS TECHEDetails have emerged of how the country’s school capitation funding system is fraught with a credibility crisis, raising fresh questions about the fate of millions set aside for learners.
Audits of various institutions revealed telling discrepancies between student numbers held by schools and those captured in the government’s National Education Management Information System.
The discrepancies have left some schools starved of millions of shillings in capitation even as others received excess funds.
The review by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu painted a grim picture of students in the Nemis but not in classrooms.
There were also cases of those in school records but not in the system, in some cases real numbers in classrooms, denying the affected schools millions.
An analysis of the reports for the year ended June 30 last year shows that the problem cuts across schools in different parts of the country.
The findings could trigger questions about whether the Nemis can be relied on as the basis for allocating public money.
The audits reveal cases where hundreds of students recorded in school registers were missing from Nemis.
On the other hand, there were other institutions in the government database carried more students than the schools reported.
In this regard, the number of learners used to calculate government support does not always match the students actually enrolled.
At Kamagut High School, for instance, Nemis recorded only 694 students while school records
showed 938, translating to a discrepancy of 244 learners.
The difference left the school underfunded by Sh10.62 million, according to the audit.
Gathungu said the unexplained variance may have affected service delivery to the school.
At St Mary’s School Yala, Nemis figures differed substantially from the school's own records during the year.
The system recorded 2,077 students in August and November 2024, while the school register showed 2,851 in both months.
In April last year, Nemis recorded 2,240 compared with 2,258 in the school records, resulting in about Sh9.2 million underfunding of the school.
Kenya High School also suffered a major funding
shortfall.
Auditors found that Nemis contained 1,547 learners while school records showed 1,556, a difference of only nine students.
The school was underfunded by Sh8.52 million when expected capitation was compared with the amount actually disbursed through Nemis.
The school should have received Sh32.08 million but system records showed it received only Sh23.56 million.
The audit established that Nemis problem is not simply about schools failing to update their records.
Under government guidelines, schools are required to register learners in Nemis and ensure that their records are accurate.
But the audit found discrepancies between the government system and records maintained by schools.
At Meru School, the system showed 6,192 students compared with 6,215 in records held by the county director of education.
At Kaaga Girls, Nemis had 996 students while the school's records showed
1,059. The 63-student gap resulted in underfunding of Sh628,875.
At Moi Girls’ School Nairobi, the school reported 2,205 students while Nemis showed 2,084.
Because of the discrepancy of 121 students, the school got Sh2.05 million less than its deserved portion. Gathungu said management was in breach of the law.
Wajir Girls Secondary School also had unexplained differences between Nemis and its own records.
The government database recorded 872 students in one term against 880 in school records.
In another term, Nemis showed 671 students compared with 754 in the school's records.
Besides the learner population discrepancies, Nemis has a problem of schools receiving money for students whose enrolment records do not match.
At Mama Ngina Girls in Mombasa, auditors found that Nemis contained 115 more students than the school register.
The school had failed to update the system after students transferred to other institutions, resulting in an over-disbursement of Sh403,712.
Gathungu said the school management was in breach of the law.
Students who had transferred out remained on the Nemis database, leading to excess funding.
At Utumishi Boys Academy, the system recorded an average of 1,361 students against 1,257 in school records.
The unexplained difference of 104 students translated into estimated excess capitation of Sh1.11 million.
At Mang’u High School, Nemis reported 8,237 students while school registers indicated 8,210.
Auditors said the overfunding of Sh98,535 may have led to irregular allocation of public funds.
Starehe Girls Centre also got an overfunding of Sh76,375, with auditor saying it was impossible to establish the reliability of the enrolment data.
Moi High School Marsabit similarly had inconsistencies that resulted in overfunding equivalent to 53 students.
In another review, Nemis recorded 1,117 students against 1,056 in school records, producing an estimated Sh195,908 overpayment.
The Auditor-General warned that such overfunding could result in misallocation of public resources.
The audit findings raise questions about the effectiveness of safeguards designed to ensure that Nemis data is regularly reconciled with actual school enrolment.
For education experts, the biggest concern is that the situation has not improved despite previous audits flagging the anomalies.
“Why are the said ghost learners being kept in the system yet they have been red-flagged in a number of audits, including by the government itself?” Muthoni Ouko, Tunza Mtoto Coalition director, said.
A government-led audit exposed more than 885,000 ghost pupils, and 87,000 in secondary schools, illegally drawing Sh1 billion in capitation per year.
Cases have also been cited of non-existent schools drawing capitation funds, inflated enrolments, and fake identities.
INSTANT ANALYSIS
The audit exposes serious weaknesses in Kenya’s education funding system, with unreliable Nemis enrolment data causing both underfunding and overfunding of schools. The discrepancies threaten service delivery and raise concerns over accountability in managing public resources. Persistent “ghost learners,” inflated enrolments and outdated records suggest previous audit warnings have not been adequately addressed, undermining confidence in the system.
