Kenya’s record KCSE candidature masks a deepening crisis — a quarter-million children unaccounted for and a system straining at every seam.
By Harriet Jamoza
Kenya’s 2026 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination drew 1,048,355 candidates — a historic first, crossing the one-million mark for the first time. The country is celebrating. It should also be asking hard questions.
Where are the 261,000 children who disappeared along the way?
Data shows 185,497 learners who sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 2022 never registered for KCSE 2026. A further 75,182 who sat the Kenya Primary School Examinations Assessment in 2023 did not sit the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment this year. That is 260,679 children unaccounted for. The Ministry of Education is now tracing them. The real question is why we are tracing them after the fact rather than protecting them before the crisis.
This examination season has exposed deeper fractures. Three KCSE candidates died. Thirteen went missing in Nairobi. Cheating allegations surfaced in Bungoma, Garissa and Wajir. Students attacked exam officials in Kisii, injuring four police officers. A university student was arrested for leaking papers on Telegram.
Meanwhile, 20,000 students placed at Kenya Medical Training College every cycle fail to report because they cannot access the Higher Education Loans Board funding. KMTC trains 85 per cent of Kenya’s health workers. Denying them funding is not an administrative oversight — it is a public health failure.
Kenya cannot celebrate the transition to Competency-Based Education while a quarter-million learners vanish without explanation.
Publish the findings. Seal the leaks. Fund every student.
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