Auditor-General Flags Irregularities in NEMIS Learner Data as Education Ministry Migrates to KEMIS.
The accuracy of learner enrolment data in Kenya’s public and private schools has been questioned after it emerged that the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) was tampered with, including deleting learners’ records. This was revealed during the ongoing review of the State Department for Basic Education’s 2022/2023 budget by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu flagged this in the audit report to PAC. The report shows the Ministry of Education may not have a correct count of learners, raising concerns about capitation funding which is directly dependent on data in Nemis.
Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Jwan Bitok told PAC that 12.6 million learners are enrolled in public primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools. According to PS Bitok, these are 6.4 million in primary schools, 2.9 million in Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) and 3.3 million in senior secondary schools.
But Fredrick Mujumba, Director of Kenya Education Management Information System (Kemis) — the new system replacing Nemis — contradicted this. When asked by PAC chairman Butere MP Tindi Mwale, Mr. Mujumba said data manipulation had compromised Nemis.
“We have noticed that some of these learners have been deleted from various points, not necessarily at the school level. You even get cases where a cyber cafe has deleted learners because they were not paid for the work they did,” Mr. Mujumba said.
PAC members, including Funyula MP Dr. Wilberforce Ojiambo and Lugari MP Nabii Nabwera, questioned the Ministry’s ability to provide data for budgeting. Dr. Ojiambo said, “The State Department does not know the number of learners in schools in the country.”
Mr. Nabwera said manipulation of Nemis is the biggest threat to capitation management, noting that discrepancies in learner numbers are reported overnight.Despite this, PS Bitok told PAC that the Ministry has accurate learner records and that the transition to Kemis was done as recommended by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms chaired by Professor Raphael Munavu. He however did not disclose the cost of Kemis despite being asked several times by the Committee.
The audit also shows that the government has already spent KES 239.8 million under the Primary Education Development (PRIEDE) project to reengineer the Nemis system. The scope of this upgrade included installing a secondary server at a government cloud infrastructure site, with integration of processing and storage capabilities, load balancing, intelligent system monitoring, system scalability, data security and business continuity features. The infrastructure runs on VMware virtualization software and uses either CISCO or DELL servers.
But the Auditor-General found that the State Department for Basic Education did not provide several critical documents for audit verification. These are:
Copyright registration and reservation documents in terms of the Copyright Act of 2001;
Signed handover documentation, including a user manual for Nemis;
Test environment confirmation on technical specifications such as system scalability, load balancing and data security;
Full structure of Nemis administration showing officers responsible for development, compliance and control.
Section 22 of the Copyright Act requires that a register of all eligible works be kept and made public. The register is prima facie evidence of ownership.
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Mr. Mujumba said widespread sharing of login credentials by school staff to unauthorized persons like cyber cafe operators had contributed to the system’s weaknesses. “They thought by deleting the names of learners they were punishing the schools,” Mr. Mujumba said, citing specific investigations into credential misuse.
The migration to Kemis is supposed to address these systemic weaknesses and establish a secure and verifiable digital identity for each learner in the country.
PAC will continue to follow up on this matter with a focus on accountability in the use of public resources and effectiveness of data systems underpinning education funding and planning. The Ministry of Education is expected to provide the missing documents to complete the audit review.
Auditor-General Flags Irregularities in NEMIS Learner Data as Education Ministry Migrates to KEMIS.
