On May 13, 2025, the Ministry of Education appeared before the National Assembly and dropped a startling revelation: it lacks the funds to administer national exams this year. With proposed budget cuts of Kh5.023 billion—earmarked initially for invigilation, supervision, and examiners’ payments—over 3.5 million learners now face the prospect of disrupted assessments, including the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA), and critical early-grade evaluations. This isn’t just a fiscal issue; it’s a national education emergency.
Examinations serve a vital role in any education system. They are more than rituals of academic closure; they are markers of progress, gatekeepers to opportunity, and, especially under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), they are intended to reflect mastery of learning, not just rote memory. The ongoing transition to CBC, although necessary and commendable, requires consistent and credible assessments to be successful. A failure to fund examinations undermines this very foundation, leaving learners, parents, and teachers in limbo.
The proposed 100% budget cut to national assessments also exposes more profound structural weaknesses. How did we arrive at a place where something as central as exams can be zeroed out in a national budget? What does this say about our education financing priorities? While the overall Ministry of Education budget has been slashed by Ksh14.9 billion, including cuts to both recurrent and development budgets, the decision to target exams and school feeding programs reveals a concerning shift away from core education obligations. This is especially worrying in a country where learning poverty already stands at alarming levels and where inequalities between public and private schooling continue to widen.
Also Read: Should Teachers Be Hired Based on Highest Academic Credentials or KCSE Mean Grade?
For learners in marginalized and underserved areas, including refugee communities, arid regions, and urban informal settlements, national exams are often the only legitimate bridge to further education and employment. Undermining these assessments risks entrenching inequality and eroding the credibility of our entire education system.
So, what needs to happen?
First, Parliament must act with urgency to reinstate the Kh5.023 billion and ring-fence examination funding in all future education budgets. Exams should be treated as a non-negotiable component of learning, just like tuition, textbooks, or teacher salaries.
Second, the government should strengthen public-private financing models and explore alternative mechanisms such as education bonds or donor-supported assessment funds that can provide stability during fiscal downturns. Our reliance on annual budget negotiations for core educational functions is simply unsustainable.
Also Read: No KCSE This Year? Ministry of Education Fumbles to Explain Why There is No Exam Budget
Third, we must institutionalize transparency and accountability in education budgeting. The public deserves to know why and how key allocations are made—and unmade. Budgeting should be participatory, data-informed, and child-centered.
Lastly, the broader education community, researchers, civil society, teacher unions, and parent associations must raise a unified voice. Silence is not neutrality. If we genuinely care about learning equity, we must speak up and act now.
Examinations are not a luxury. They are an essential function of a healthy, functioning education system. To defund them is to defund the future. Kenya cannot afford that mistake.
Abdimalik Farah is a PhD Candidate and a Research Officer in the Education and Youth Empowerment Research Unit at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).
Follow our WhatsApp Channel and X Account for real-time news updates.
