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This year’s KCSE, KCPE candidates to pioneer new indexing system - Matiang’i
Candidates writing this year’s KCPE and KCSE will be the first batch to use the Unique Personal Identifiers (UPI).
The new system will replace the traditional index numbers, the ministry of Education said on Friday.
This followed the expected launch of the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) in September.
Details of learners will be uploaded on the system for easy identification throughout their career.
Students will use a single UPI at all levels of their education right from ECD to University level.
This will make it easy to track their education progress and eliminate the culture of fake certificates and unpaid HELB loans.
The web-based system that offers seamless data management of learners is part of education reforms.
The adoption of UPIs follows President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive to the examination council (Knec) last year.
The system will facilitate financial management of schools and guide the government in the allocation of funds.
It will also enable the government to generate data on the teacher-student ratio in every school.
“Allocation of resources will never be an act of guesswork as we go forward,” Education CS Fred Matiang’i said.
He spoke on Friday at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development during the training of education officials on the use of NEMIS.
The officials were drawn from the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (KESSHA), Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association (KEPSHA) and the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA).
“It is time for us to now operate with accurate information on the education sector of our country.”
“We will work with a measure of certainty on how many children we have in and out school,” Matiang’i told the officials.
Regional and county education directors, who were also present, were told they will be held personally responsible for any inaccuracies on finances at schools.
“We want to disburse resources to real students and real schools that exist,” Matiang’i said.
A report commissioned by the ministry last year revealed millions of shillings were being lost through the disbursement of capitation funds to non-existent schools and students in some parts of the country.
Head teachers and principals will key in birth certificate numbers to the NEMIS system.
This will be run against data on the Integrated Population Registration System to automatically generate information on individual learners.
Robert Masese, acting director general of basic education, said school heads will be issued with a code to access the nemis.education.go.ke/nemis portal.
The password will be eight digits from 1-8.
Matiang’i emphasized the need for school heads of both private and public schools to ensure their institutions are registered to be able to use the system.
“If you don’t have the code, you don’t exist and we will close you down or distribute your students to schools that we know.”
Masese said user manuals will be available to school officials from August 20-28 followed by training at national schools between September 10-15.
“Senior managers will be trained at the ministry headquarters on September 20 ahead of the national launch of the NEMIS on September 28,” Masese said.
Director of ICT at the ministry Lynne Nyongesa said all schools will be connected to the national fiber optic network to ensure they are able to tap into the NEMIS.
She said phase two of registration will target university and TVET students.
Teachers with the TSC numbers will be registered alongside KCPE and KCSE students.