National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah on Wednesday launched an attack on the Ministry of Education, accusing it of weak leadership, political posturing, and failure to address deep-rooted inefficiencies that continue to hurt learners across the country.
Speaking during an MPs’ retreat in Naivasha attended by Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba, Ichung’wah openly faulted the ministry’s top bureaucracy.
He told Ogamba that the ministry was crippled by poor leadership, claiming that some senior officials lacked a clear understanding of the sector’s challenges.
He described the situation as unacceptable, arguing that learners were paying the price for administrative incompetence and indecision.
Ichung’wah strongly dismissed proposals to channel education infrastructure funds through the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF).
He rejected suggestions by National Assembly Education Committee chair Julius Meli, saying the idea was politically motivated and impractical.
According to the Majority Leader, routing infrastructure funds equally through constituencies would worsen existing inequalities rather than fix them.
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He cited glaring disparities in the number of schools across constituencies to make his case. Ichung’wah noted that Kikuyu constituency has 38 public secondary schools, Lang’ata has only four, while Kathiani has about 62.
He argued that sharing infrastructure funds equally under such conditions amounted to politics, not leadership. He insisted that equitable allocation should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, guided by Parliament, rather than being reduced to blanket political formulas.
The Kikuyu MP reminded the House that infrastructure funding falls under the oversight of Parliament’s Education Committee and that budget shortfalls in the ministry are ultimately the result of parliamentary appropriations.
He challenged claims that reallocating NG-CDF funds could resolve the ministry’s reported Sh48 billion deficit, calling the math misleading. He calculated that even taking an average of Sh30 million from each of the 290 constituencies would only raise about Sh8.7 billion, far short of the deficit.
Drawing from his own constituency, Ichung’wah argued that equal funding was inherently unfair.
He said some constituencies did not urgently need infrastructure funds, while others with far more schools required significantly higher allocations. Treating them the same, he argued, undermined equity.
Ichung’wah also raised concerns over entrenched corruption in schools, particularly in uniform procurement, lunch programmes, and the supply of desks and lockers.
He cited cases where schools in the same locality charged wildly different amounts for lunch programmes, ranging from Sh3,000 to Sh9,000. He questioned why the ministry had failed to regulate such costs despite running a national school feeding programme.
He further highlighted accountability failures, recounting cases where schools continued requesting desks despite having unused supplies stored away.
He lamented the collapse of effective school inspection, saying Members of Parliament had been forced to act as inspectors due to inaction by ministry officials.
On teacher deployment, Ichung’wah accused the Teachers Service Commission of failing to rationalise staffing, leading to extreme imbalances between schools.
He urged the CS to leave Nairobi offices, confront realities on the ground, and make tough policy decisions.
Ichung’wah concluded by warning against politicising education, urging the government to prioritise the interests of children over political convenience.
