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The former Secretary General of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has welcomed the Ministry of Education's decision to ask parents to pay school fees for students in national schools via the e-Citizen platform. This new government initiative aims to improve service delivery, bring transparency and protect both students and parents. However, some are expressing concern about the practical challenges and the country's state of readiness for such a digital transition

Egerton University Vice-Chancellor and eight University Council members have received a 30-day jail term following their failure to implement a court order directing them to pay the lecturers 100% of their salaries. Egerton University Academic Staff Union (UASU) Chapter had filed for contempt after the university imposed a 40% pay cut in 2020 allegedly as a stop-gap measure at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the Council failed to produce evidence of the necessity of this measure.

Four students have been arrested for allegedly engaging in malpractice during the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations via Whatsapp and Telegram platforms. Detectives used cyber and digital forensics to intercept dozens of messages containing screenshots of the papers that are currently being examined. According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the Ministry of Education’s efforts to preserve the integrity of administering the examination have been jeopardized by corrupted government officials.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has launched a new biometric enrolment and validation of teachers system intended to address staff shortages and prevent the use of fake degrees. Pre-loaded data from the TSC payroll system will be validated when the teachers provide physical documents such as an enrolment certificate, national identity card, letter of first and last appointment together with their academic and professional certificates. This pilot registration took off in 143 schools in seven counties.

Two former accountants at the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology received 7.5 years in prison after they were found guilty of embezzling Ksh2.5 million. They faced ten counts for fraudulent acquisition of public property, abuse of office, conspiracy to defraud and stealing by a person employed by the public service. Another Education official was sentenced to 2.5 years after stealing Ksh1.5 million of public funds.

In order to ensure that only genuine qualifications cross borders, The Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) joined the African Qualifications Verification Network, an initiative of the African Union to support the mobility of students and workers on the continent. Under the regulation developed in 2018, anyone seeking employment in Kenya with foreign qualifications must be assessed by the KNQA and granted a certificate of recognition or verification.

A number of school heads planned to defraud the government by providing lists of non-existing teachers, which delayed the release of the funds to pay teachers and other staff employed by the Boards of Management (BoM). The Minister of Education asked principals to collect and submit the right data of BoM teachers employed including names, the Teachers Service Commission number, and the country they belong to.

According to a computer scientist and expert in contract cheating, Kenya has established itself as the centre of the academic cheating universe. The vast majority of university students’ work for essay factories which are delivered to British students with a guarantee they contain no plagiarism and all anonymous. In an effort to clamp down on the cheats and after pressure from the British Government, PayPal announced it would block payments to essay factories.