CONTRIBUTORS
Brown Bully Ndale Onguko
Associate Research Scientist
Davis Muli Musyoki
Communications Officer
Kenyans have recently been treated to key sectoral systemic changes that may not have been thoroughly thought through. The changes that happened in the health sector necessitated the instant disbanding of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and the quick setup of the Social Health Authority (SHA) and the accompanying Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) is a case in point. The changes were implemented at a supersonic speed never before seen in Kenya. Granted, there were many challenges that were experienced by Kenyans as they sought health insurance services from NHIF. Very few Kenyans, mainly those in formal employment, were covered by NHIF. However, the remedy may not necessarily have been disbanding NHIF and setting up SHA/SHIF. The results of the changes have not been very pleasant.
Fast forward to the education sector, where we have seen changes that mirror those in the health sector. The university funding model comes to mind, as this policy was also changed at a similar rapid pace to the NHIF to SHA/SHIF shift. The university funding model has been problematic since the changes were quickly instituted. Another recent change in the education sector is the shift from the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) to the Kenya Education Management Information System (KEMIS). One may ask, what is in a name?
Kenyans have for long endured problems posed by the ineffectiveness of NEMIS in providing the services they required. Many students whose credentials should have been captured in NEMIS but were not, have not accessed critical services. The students’ capitation funds were never remitted to the schools they were enrolled in because their credentials were not stored in the database. There have been many eligible schools missing in the NEMIS database as well. However, surprisingly, there have also been many ‘non-existent schools’ (so-called ghost schools) appearing in NEMIS and were drawing capitation funding for ‘non-existent students’ for years. An audit report revealed that over 3,480 schools were listed on NEMIS using codes from the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), despite the TSC’s primary responsibility being to manage teachers, not institutions. This was a very glaring revelation. There were many ghost schools identified in Baringo County. This anomaly has neither been explained nor have suspects been taken to court for justice to be served.
Human interests plagued the smooth running of the NEMIS. The ‘non-existent schools’ appeared in NEMIS and benefited from the allocated funding, allowing their ‘owners’ to benefit from those funds. Surprisingly, after the schools were exposed in the news media, Kenyans neither heard nor saw any actions taken against the people behind such ownership. The requirement by education authorities that students provide birth certificates issued by the state in order to be registered in NEMIS was a significant obstacle for some students. Without having a birth certificate, it was impossible to be registered in NEMIS. Some students who had obtained their birth certificates were still unable to be registered in NEMIS due to issues related to a mismatch between the certificate serial number and the birth certificate number.
Just like the shift from NHIF to SHA/SHIF before or the change in university funding model, it is not clear to Kenyans what the Ministry of Education is achieving by changing the name from NEMIS to KEMIS. Will the change from ‘National’ in NEMIS to ‘Kenya’ in KEMIS make a difference? Was it necessary? The stated objective of NEMIS on the Ministry of Education website was to help streamline data management for informed decision-making and planning in the education sector by hosting student/pupil data, linked to a Unique Identifier that is randomly generated using a verifiable algorithm. On another part of the Ministry of Education Website, KEMIS has been identified as the single source of truth and one-stop shop for education data. KEMIS is further styled on the same website as: “The revolutionary web application that tracks performance mobility of learners and teaching staff from the early childhood development education (ECDE) to institutions of higher learning to ensure maximum efficiency and effective utilization of education resources”. Surprisingly, when one clicks on the drop-down link for services, among the services offered by KEMIS is NEMIS. The revolutionary part of the web application may be something to look out for in the future as Kenyans seek for services on the KEMIS portal.
One hopes this isn’t just a rebranding exercise masking old inefficiency. A key concern is whether KEMIS was designed with lessons from NEMIS in mind, especially regarding data accuracy, school legitimacy, and learner identification barriers. Otherwise, we risk replicating the same challenges in a new interface.
Kenyans should be hopeful that the suffering they experienced when NEMIS was operational will not be repeated with KEMIS. Kenyans have not been adequately sensitized to understand the changes from NEMIS to KEMIS. It is not clear for example, what will be done to enable all students’ data to be captured on KEMIS, how the ‘non-existent schools’ will become really ‘non-existent’ on KEMIS, and what the motivation was for replacing “National” with “Kenya” as an identifier. For example, one may be tempted to think that Kenya communicates more patriotism than nationalism on such a system identifier.
Additionally, clarity is needed on KEMIS’s integration with civil registration systems to solve the birth certificate bottleneck and the accountability mechanisms to ensure that capitation funds reach actual learners. Without legislative safeguards and transparency protocols, KEMIS could become another digital monument to systemic failure.
As stakeholders, including educators, school administrators, and development partners, we must call for public participation in such reforms. System changes should be inclusive, consultative, and informed by evidence—not top-down decisions made in haste.