Teachers Press Ministry to Extend Nemis Deadline Amid Technical Glitches.
Teacher unions are urging the Ministry of Education to extend the deadline for registering primary school learners in the National Education Management Information System (Nemis). The registration period closed at midnight on Easter Monday, but numerous challenges—including persistent system failures—have prevented many school heads from completing the process.
According to the Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association (Kepsha) and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), the online portal has been plagued by connectivity issues, making data entry nearly impossible for two consecutive weeks. Kepsha national chairperson Fuad Ali reported that most school heads were unable to input learners’ information due to system downtimes, prompting a request for a brief extension to finalize the registrations.
Ali stressed the immediate need for the Ministry to upgrade the Nemis system, citing the platform’s inefficiencies as a serious setback. He emphasized that the successful registration of learners was critical for the Ministry to allocate capitation funds to schools ahead of the second term reopening on February 28, 2025. Despite tireless efforts by headteachers, a significant number of learners remain unregistered due to the system’s unreliability.
Introduced on July 31, 2017, and fully rolled out in January 2018 after a pilot in 600 schools, Nemis has registered over 10.4 million learners in public and private primary institutions by 2024. Each headteacher is issued a unique code via email to access the portal and input student data. However, frequent delays in receiving these access codes have exacerbated registration setbacks.
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Knut secretary-general Collins Oyuu echoed Kepsha’s concerns, advocating for a deadline extension to safeguard learners’ rights. He argued that technical barriers should not prevent any child from being included in the system, as exclusion could result in denial of educational support and funding.
Oyuu appealed to the Ministry to accommodate the requests of school administrators, stating that registering every learner is essential for effective educational planning. Speaking in Bomet County, he reinforced that education is a right for every child and that the government must step in to support learners—especially under such circumstances.
A significant consequence of incomplete registration is the denial of capitation funds to unregistered students. Knut’s first national chairman, Malel Langat, noted that only learners captured in Nemis are considered for funding, regardless of their presence in the school’s manual register. For instance, a school with 800 pupils but only 200 entered in Nemis would only receive funding for those 200.
Nemis data is also used to allocate resources such as textbooks, in addition to supporting academic tracking through a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) assigned to each learner. This identifier, which requires a birth certificate to generate, tracks a student’s academic record, personal information, and school history throughout their educational journey.
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A longstanding obstacle in enrolling learners in Grades 1–3 has been the lack of birth certificates, especially for children raised by guardians or grandparents. A headteacher in Bomet County pointed out that these children often lack essential documents, urging government intervention to assist them in obtaining birth certificates. Without these, learners cannot receive assessment numbers or be assigned a UPI in the Nemis system.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogambo recently highlighted the platform’s importance in the management of schools. During a tour of Konoin and Sotik constituencies in Bomet County, he underscored how Nemis plays a central role in determining government funding and ensuring efficient resource distribution across learning institutions.
Teachers Press Ministry to Extend Nemis Deadline Amid Technical Glitches.
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