Kenya is edging closer to meeting the internationally recommended teacher-to-learner ratio in basic education, even as concerns grow over the quality of learning outcomes in classrooms.
Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok said the country currently has about 458,000 teachers serving 12 million learners translating to a national ratio of 1:26. The global benchmark stands at 1:25.
According to Bitok, the progress follows the recruitment of more than 100,000 teachers in recent years, alongside retraining programmes designed to align classroom instruction with the Competency-Based Education (CBE) curriculum. He added that infrastructure expansion including new classrooms and laboratories has been accelerated to accommodate rising enrolment and support the pioneer Grade 10 CBE cohort, whose transition rate is nearing 100 per cent.
The PS spoke during the Senate’s Assessment and Planning Retreat in Naivasha, where education standards and policy implementation were under review.
Beyond staffing and infrastructure, the ministry is also tightening oversight of enrolment data. Bitok said a recent audit uncovered cases of “ghost learners,” enabling the government to clean up school records and ensure capitation funds are allocated accurately. Investigations and disciplinary action are ongoing against school heads and sub-county education officials suspected of inflating student numbers.
Despite high enrolment rates with pre-primary participation at 94.2 per cent Bitok acknowledged that learning outcomes remain a significant challenge.
Citing findings from the 2025 Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (FLANA) by Usawa Agenda, he noted that foundational skills among upper primary learners are weak. The report indicates that three in ten Grade Six pupils cannot solve mathematics problems set at Grade Three level, while nearly half struggle to comprehend a Grade Three English passage.
The nationwide survey, conducted between June and July 2025 across all 47 counties, assessed nearly 50,000 children aged 10 to 15, both in and out of school. It found that 51.3 per cent of Grade Six learners in public schools are not adequately prepared for junior secondary.
The findings raise concerns about Kenya’s ambition to channel 60 per cent of learners into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The report cautions that weak reading skills undermine performance even in mathematics, as most numerical problems are text-based.
Bitok urged closer coordination between county education directors, ministry quality assurance officers and county government counterparts to close the learning gaps, stressing that expanding access must now go hand in hand with improving quality.
