Cabinet approves all schools, colleges & universities to pay school fees via eCitizen

The Cabinet has approved the digitisation of the entire education system in the country in a move aimed at streamlining services.

The Cabinet on Wednesday directed the Ministry of Education to digitise the entire sector from basic to tertiary and university level within 30 days to end fraud and exploitation of parents.

At a meeting chaired by President William Ruto at State House on Wednesday morning, the Cabinet observed that the capitation funds that government sends to schools must only go to “real children.”

“This intervention aims to address the governance challenges within our education system that has led to parallel accounts, charging of unauthorised school fees, diversion of the exchequer releases on capitation and other fraudulent activities that undermine the integrity of the education system, leading to the enrollment of ghost students,” read the dispatch in part.

The meeting noted that digitisation in the education sector is being sabotaged, and cited the 10,000 national examination candidates government paid for but never turned up for the exams.

President Ruto said: “Resistance to paying fees through e-Citizen is by those who have created parallel bank accounts the way parallel Paybills have been set up across the public service.”

The Cabinet also resolved that digitisation of services must be extended to technical and vocational education institutions and universities, including at the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB).