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Budget Consultation Aims to Close Kenya’s Education Financing Gaps for All Learners for FY 2027/28

Budget Consultation Aims to Close Kenya’s Education Financing Gaps for All Learners for FY 2027/28

  • On 9 October 2026, around 90 education stakeholders, including GI-ESCR, met in Nairobi and online to scrutinise Kenya’s 2027/28 basic education budget proposals.
  • Basic education requested KSh 229 billion but was allocated KSh 140 billion, a gap of around 39%.
  • Civil society warned that public participation risks becoming a procedural exercise if stakeholders never learn what happened to their input.

 

On 9 October 2026, around 90 education stakeholders, including GI-ESCR, met in Nairobi and online to examine Kenya’s basic education budget proposals for 2027/28 and the medium term. The aim was to assess whether the proposed allocations are adequate, equitable and aligned with learners’ needs. The discussions highlighted a funding gap of around 39%, alongside shortfalls in capitation, inclusive education, early childhood education, school meals and school sanitation.

The engagement began with a consultation convened by the State Department for Basic Education. It continued with a civil society-only session to review the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) proposals and prepare recommendations on the gaps identified.

Civil society participation was coordinated by the Regional Education Learning Initiative (RELI Africa) together with its member organisations and other education partners. Represented by our Programme Officer for Africa, Roselyne Onyango, GI-ESCR took part as a member of RELI Africa’s leadership team, contributing budget analysis and a human rights perspective. This forms part of its work to secure adequate public financing for quality, inclusive public education in Kenya.

Kenya’s Constitution guarantees every child the right to free and compulsory basic education and requires public finance to be managed openly and with public participation. Yet basic education has been persistently underfinanced. For FY 2027/28, the basic education sub-sector requested KSh 229 billion but was allocated KSh 140 billion.

The timing of the consultation was significant. At this early stage of Kenya’s annual budget cycle, each sector prepares its proposals under the MTEF. These are presented at public sector hearings and then inform the Budget Policy Statement and the final estimates submitted to Parliament.

Coming ahead of the hearings on 13 October, the consultation offered civil society a key opportunity to shape the education budget before decisions were consolidated, while allocations and performance indicators were still open to change.

The engagement was directed primarily at the State Department for Basic Education, which prepares the sector’s budget proposals, sets programme targets and is responsible for implementing education spending. The National Treasury was a second key target, as it sets sector spending ceilings, prescribes the programme-based budget format and determines how much of the requested resources are approved.

 

Testing the Numbers

 

The consultation opened with a presentation by Director Fredrick Mujumba on behalf of the State Department. It set out proposed allocations and targets across primary and secondary education, capitation, school meals, inclusive education, quality assurance and infrastructure.

What followed quickly moved beyond clarification to a close examination of whether the numbers added up. Stakeholders returned again and again to one question: 'Can the proposed targets realistically be met with the resources allocated?'.

Capitation dominated the early exchanges. This funding reaches 4.9 million of the 6.27 million learners in primary school, 2.05 million of 3.62 million in junior school and 2.45 million of 3.48 million in secondary school. Several participants pressed the State Department to explain the formula used to set capitation levels, which remains unpublished.

Participants argued that these gaps are far from abstract. When capitation falls short, schools recover costs from families, putting children from low-income households at risk of dropping out. Girls from poorer households are often the first to be withdrawn.

Inconsistencies in official data became a recurring theme. On school meals, the figure of four million beneficiaries cited in the presentation did not match the published Education Sector Report. Stakeholders noted that the proposed targets bore little relation either to the government’s commitment to reach 10 million learners by 2030 or to the President’s announcement on 30 September 2026 of free school meals nationwide.

Similar gaps emerged in pre-primary education, where actual enrolment in FY 2025/26 was around 1.57 million against a target of 3.09 million, yet targets were set to rise further. Stakeholders also raised concerns about limited public access to budget implementation documents.

Inclusive education drew similar scrutiny. Allocations for secondary special needs education remained flat at KSh 272 million against a stated requirement of KSh 735 million. Capital funding for primary special needs education was projected to fall in FY 2029/30, despite a stated commitment to strengthen inclusion.

Participants also questioned possible overlaps between the Kenya Institute of Special Education and the Kenya Literature Bureau in producing specialised learning materials. They drew attention, too, to the near invisibility of school water, sanitation and menstrual hygiene in the proposals.

 

Read the Education Sector Report here:

 

Beyond the State Department

 

Two moments marked the limits of what the engagement could achieve. When civil society proposed outcome indicators, such as proficiency at Grades 3, 6 and 9 or transition and retention rates, the State Department explained that the programme-based budget format prescribed by the National Treasury favours output indicators. As a result, some recommendations fall outside its immediate control.

Recommendations on civil society support for teachers and curriculum implementation were referred to the Teachers Service Commission, which was not present. Both exchanges made clear that meaningful reform depends not only on the State Department but also on the National Treasury and other institutions that shape the budget.

 

Making Participation Count

 

In the civil society-only session that followed, partners turned these findings into shared priorities and reflected candidly on the process itself. While acknowledging the government’s limited fiscal space, they stressed that this makes transparent prioritisation more urgent, not less. They also raised concerns about unspent budgets, particularly for capacity development.

Above all, partners warned that public participation risks becoming a procedural exercise if stakeholders never learn what happened to their input. That concern speaks to a wider aim of GI-ESCR’s work: stronger budget transparency and meaningful public participation in Kenya’s education budget cycle. This includes government publication of work plans, implementation reports and disaggregated data, as well as a mechanism to track how stakeholder recommendations are used.

The civil society session also aimed to strengthen coordination among education organisations and to plan continued engagement throughout the budget cycle, including on the FY 2028/29 budget. As the process continues, Parliament, which receives the final estimates, will be the next advocacy target.

Carried out as part of the Collaborative for a Gender-Just Economy, the engagement continues GI-ESCR’s advocacy on education financing in Kenya with the National CSO Working Group and RELI Africa. It builds on GI-ESCR’s analysis of the FY 2026/27 budget and on the September 2026 memorandum on Kenya’s education bills.

The gaps identified in Nairobi, from capitation that reaches far fewer learners than are enrolled to the near invisibility of school sanitation in the proposals, bear directly on children’s right to free and compulsory basic education. Working alongside RELI Africa and partners across education, disability, gender, nutrition, sanitation and public finance, GI-ESCR is seeking a budget that meets learners’ needs, particularly those of girls, learners with disabilities and children from low-income households. It is also working towards a budget process in which those who take part can see how their recommendations are used, as part of its wider effort to secure adequate public financing for quality, inclusive public education in Kenya.

 

Read the Memorandum on the FY 2027/28 and Medium-Term Budget Proposals for Basic Education here:

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We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

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