Government to Maintain Funding for National Examination Candidates – CS Mbadi
Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has alleviated concerns regarding the financing of national examinations, confirming that the government will continue to fund the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.
The Cabinet Secretary addressed rising public discontent following the government’s proposal to eliminate the national examination fee waiver, a policy that has been in effect for the past decade.
During a town hall meeting on June 9, 2025, Mbadi reassured the Kenyan populace that the government would cover the costs of national examinations for all students this year.
He clarified that although the initial budget did not allocate funds for examinations such as the KCSE, the Treasury has since made the requisite funds available.
“Initially, we did not allocate examination fees for this year, but we have now secured the necessary funding,” Mbadi stated.
“I assure all Kenyan students that they will be able to sit for their exams. The government will finance this; we are merely restructuring the system.”
Previously, Mbadi had cited the unsustainability of the decade-long examination subsidy, in light of increasing budget deficits, as the rationale behind the proposed discontinuation of the waiver.
This proposal would have led the Ministry of Education to implement a differentiated model for charging examination fees, wherein only students from economically disadvantaged households would continue to receive fee waivers.
During the town hall meeting, the Treasury Cabinet Secretary disclosed that the Cabinet had expressed concerns regarding the high costs associated with administering national examinations, particularly questioning the rationale behind printing examination materials abroad.
“What transpired was that, as a Cabinet, we could not comprehend the expenditure on examinations; we were puzzled as to why examination materials were printed outside the country, while more sensitive documents, such as passports, are produced locally,” Mbadi remarked.
He further elaborated that the Ministry of Education has been tasked with developing a more economically viable framework for conducting national assessments.
“The Ministry needed to devise a more realistic structure for administering and financing examinations—one that does not involve the Sh11 billion that was previously allocated,” he stated.
The initial proposal to eliminate the examination fee waiver had incited national outrage, with apprehensions that such a move would impose an excessive burden on low-income households and exacerbate inequalities in access to education.
The examination fee waiver was instituted in 2015 as part of the government’s initiative to promote free and compulsory basic education.
