Economy

Kiambu leads counties in fresh students PIN listing

students

Mombasa residents wait to get birth certificates for their children at Bima Towers. The document must be produced for the ongoing mass registration of primary and secondary school pupils. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Kiambu is the leading county in the fresh registration of learners in schools under the computer-aided listing that will see all pupils get personal identification numbers.

The mass registration of primary and secondary school pupils has seen the data of the 9,515,564 learners and their parents captured in the National Education Information Management System (Nemis) against a target of 12 million.

The registration is hinged on birth certificates and had seen Kiambu lead with 447,664 new registrations ahead of Nairobi (447,370), Kisii (432,444), Nakuru (410,686) and Meru (424,372).

Each pupil has been given Unique Personal Identification (UPI) number and the captured data will help in the allocation of resources like Treasury allocation to schools, text books and teacher allocation.

READ: Registration deadline for students extended to March 31

READ: LETTERS: Implementation of education data system reveals anomalies

Cash disbursements

“The Ministry wishes to inform schools that going forward, cash disbursements for the Free Primary Education Programme, Free Day Secondary Education Programme and the KCPE and KCSE examinations registration fee payments will be based on the NEMIS platform,”  said Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed.

She added: “We therefore encourage schools to continuously and accurately update their pupil and staff data to the NEMIS environment.

Other top listings include Machakos (319,500), Kakamega (308398), Kisumu(290,302),Murang’a (275,796) and Makueni county  has registered 266,548 pupils.

Counties with least registered pupils are; Wajir (6,754), Samburu has 13,138, Mandera(34,810), Lamu(35,498),Marsabit(35,062),Garissa(27072), West Pokot (27,496), Tana River (19,004), Turkana (18,684) and Isiolo with 13,808 learners.

The government provides Sh14 billion for free primary education and Sh32 billion for free secondary learning.

100pc transition

But with 100 per cent transition to secondary schools, the government has since increased capitation to secondary schools.

For primary schools, the government pays Sh1,420 per child per year while in secondary schools, it pays Sh22,244 per child.

The new registration was launched on January 27 this year for all learners in primary and secondary schools.

But the exercise was extended in February following the slow process of issuing birth certificates, especially at the primary school level.

“It has been noted that the process has been slowed down by the fact that most learners were yet to acquire birth certificates that were required for registration,” Ms Mohamed said.