Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has delivered a sobering assessment of Kenya’s education financing, warning that the country currently lacks the fiscal capacity to implement universal free education.
Speaking during an interview on Ramogi TV on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, Mbadi said mounting public pressure for fully free education has collided with the harsh realities of a constrained national budget. He stressed that the government’s role, as things stand, is limited to subsidising education costs—not eliminating them entirely.
According to the Cabinet Secretary, the education sector’s allocation is insufficient to cover full school fees for all learners, meaning parents must continue meeting a significant portion of the costs. He illustrated the scale of the challenge by pointing to enrolment figures across the country: about 11 million pupils in primary schools and 4 million students in secondary schools.
At the primary level, each pupil receives a government subsidy of Ksh 3,000, translating to approximately Ksh 33 billion annually. In secondary schools, the state allocates Ksh 22,000 per student, pushing the annual bill to about Ksh 88 billion. Mbadi noted that these two figures alone already stretch the education budget beyond recommended limits, even before factoring in the estimated 650,000 students enrolled in universities and other tertiary institutions.
He further broke down the real cost of schooling to underscore the gap between government support and actual expenses. Boarding schools, he said, cost nearly Ksh 75,000 per child per year, while day schools average around Ksh 35,000. Under the current framework, the government contributes Ksh 22,000 for boarding students and Ksh 12,000 for day scholars, leaving parents to cover the balance.
Mbadi argued that even drastic measures—such as converting all secondary schools into day schools to cut costs—would still not make fully free secondary education financially sustainable under the current budget.
Mbadi’s cut-off point
Addressing popular reform proposals, the Treasury CS dismissed claims that merging various bursaries, including Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and county-level allocations, could generate enough resources to fund free education. He revealed that while he had previously considered the idea, further analysis showed it to be unworkable.
Mbadi also cautioned against drawing direct comparisons with the era of former President Mwai Kibaki, noting that the landmark free primary education policy introduced then was limited in scope and did not cover every child or every level of learning.
Ultimately, Mbadi said that achieving truly free education in Kenya would require a radical reallocation of public funds from other critical sectors such as health and infrastructure—trade-offs the Treasury is not currently prepared to make.
