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Uhuru: Secondary education to be free from 2019

By PSCU June 23rd, 2016 1 min read

The Government will make secondary education free three years from now, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said.

The president said this will make transition from primary to secondary school possible for all KCPE candidates and remove many of the factors that make students drop out of high school.

The head of state said the Jubilee administration has increased the free day secondary education expenditure by 33 per cent to Sh32 billion as it prepares to make universal secondary education free to ensure 100 per cent transition from primary to secondary school.

“We are doing all this to improve the quality of education and ease the burden on parents by removing impediments of access to secondary education,” the President said.

President Kenyatta was speaking in Mombasa on Wednesday when he addressed the 41st Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) annual national conference.

HANDSOME DIVIDENDS

He traced the introduction of Free Day Secondary Education in 2008 when the Government started paying Sh10,265 for each student a year, saying the scaling up of the figure to Sh12,870 last year has seen a phenomenal growth in enrolment in high schools.

“The Free Day Secondary Education programme has paid handsome dividends – transition rates from primary to secondary schools have improved substantially from 60 per cent in 2008 to 86.7 per cent in 2015,” President Kenyatta said.

The central place of education in national development is crucial, the President said, and the Government will continue to invest heavily in education.

The President said the Government was concerned about those who were still not able to join secondary school.