Matiang'i makes drastic changes few days to opening of schools

juma chrispinus

23 August 2017 09:02 AM

Some schools face closure when the new changes take effect next week

All students in public schools will now be assigned a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI), Education CS Dr Fred Matiang’i has said.

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The new six-character code will be similar to the personal identification number (PIN) issued to taxpayers by KRA.

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i has described the new Kenya National Education Management Information System (Nemis) as "the single source of truth for information" on all Kenyan learners and schools.

Dr Matiang’i has also said that the 1.6 million Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates sitting for this year's examinations will be allocated the UPI's between August 29 and September 5.

By so doing, he added, it will be easy to track the academic progress and qualifications of all persons, which will effectively deal a blow to cheats who resort to rogue academic papers.

In the recent past, the desire for higher education has pushed many people to forge their academic papers and the Ministry of Education now says the move will curb such menace.

Shut down of schools

According to the new order, all schools will now be required to have a unique code, failure to have will mean that such schools will be indefinitely shut down.

"We will close down all schools that will not be in our database," said Dr Matiang'i.

The system which was on a pilot program last week, Matiang’i said, has been designed to provide quality data which is reliable, relevant, and easily accessible.

The manuals for use of the system are set for development between August 20 and 28.

Teachers

All teachers going forward, the ministry has said, will be required to have a special access code and a common depository apart from that of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

According to the Ministry of Education, an ideal Nemis infrastructure ought to show all teachers and lecturers' data. Such information will be deposited in a central folder and will be accessible for planning and decision making.

Teachers, in addition to their Teachers Service Commission numbers, will also be allocated special codes.

Under the new resource allocation, the system will determine free education capitation beneficiaries and reveal teacher needs per school.

juma chrispinus