Ruto Confident Reforms Have Enhanced Education Quality

President William Ruto has raised concerns about the challenges facing Kenya’s education system, warning that poor education quality and exam cheating could lead to a nation’s downfall.

“As scholars, you know the saying: to destroy a nation, you don’t need an atomic bomb or long-range missiles. All you need to do is lower the quality of education, and if there is exam cheating, you will have destroyed a nation,” he stated.

Speaking during a town hall meeting, Ruto highlighted widespread concerns among citizens about the future of their children after Grade Six and the status of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).

He also revealed that 23 out of 40 Kenyan universities were nearly bankrupt due to government debts.

"Twenty-three out of our 40 universities were technically bankrupt or insolvent because the government of Kenya owed them debts. Public universities were owed 135 or 38 billion shillings, and private universities about 51 billion shillings. Many of our universities could hardly pay salaries, with some paying only half," he said.

Ruto shared a conversation with a university chancellor who disclosed that lecturers hadn’t received full salaries in the past 13 years, and many suppliers remained unpaid. In response to these issues, Ruto said he established a 42-member task force to address the challenges in the education sector, aiming to safeguard the nation’s future.

"One of the first actions I took after assuming office was appointing a 42-person task force comprised of education professionals, individuals with experience in running schools, universities, and colleges. They spent nearly eight months addressing the issues in our education sector," Ruto explained. 

He expressed confidence in the task force’s recommendations, stating that they have been implemented to align the education system with competency-based standards.

Ruto also mentioned that the task force provided recommendations on the teacher-to-pupil ratio, which led to the hiring of 56,000 new teachers over the past two years—the largest recruitment in Kenya’s history. He added that this was part of the broader implementation of a student-centered funding model.