Kenya names national task team on school unrest, fees and uniforms; former University of Nairobi head to chair

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has appointed a national task team on school unrest, with former University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor Peter Mulwa Mbithi as chairman, the Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke reported on 24 October 2026. The Gazette notice naming the team is dated 23 October 2026.

The team sits for 90 days from the date the notice was published. It must send monthly progress reports to the Cabinet Secretary and a final report at the end of its term. Mr Mbithi was the University of Nairobi's Vice-Chancellor from 2015 to 2019.

Its terms of reference include:

• reviewing earlier reports on school unrest and the gaps in carrying out their recommendations;
• finding the immediate and underlying causes of this year's incidents, which disrupted learning and forced schools to close;
• reviewing school safety standards and emergency preparedness, and the management and infrastructure of boarding schools;
• examining the affordability of school uniforms, and the links between unrest, education funding and school fees;
• reviewing student discipline, counselling, mental health support and learner welfare, and the accountability of school administrators, parents, education officials and other stakeholders;
• inviting views from education stakeholders and the public.

Among the members named are Julius Nyabundi, chairman of the Kenya National Examinations Council and a former Vice-Chancellor of Maseno University; Collins Odote, chairperson of the Council of Legal Education; Collins Henry Oyuu, Secretary-General of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT); Silas David Obuhatsa, chairman of the National Parents Association; and George Lenny Kisaka, an Assistant Inspector General of Police.

Eight joint secretaries support the team. William Sugut, Head of the Directorate of Secondary Education, is the lead secretary.

Mr Ogamba first announced a multi-stakeholder team on 28 June, at an event in Meru County. Speaking in Nyeri County on 9 July, he said it would be gazetted within two weeks, would include students and parents for the first time, would tour the country for views and would report within 90 days, Citizen Digital reported.

Mr Ogamba said in June that unrest had been reported in 204 senior schools and that learners had resumed lessons in 59 of them, The Star reported on 10 June. "Less than two per cent of the country's senior schools have been affected by unrest," he said. He listed leadership challenges in institutions, learner anxiety and examination-related stress, poor conditions in boarding sections, alcohol and drug abuse, strenuous routines, and peer influence and copycat behaviour among the drivers.

Citizen Digital's 9 July report recalled that a fire at Utumishi Girls Academy in Gilgil, Nakuru County, had killed 16 students, and said unrest had broken out at Nyabisase Secondary School in Bobasi that week.

After the plan was announced, the Education Stakeholders Association of Kenya (ESAK) opposed a new body, The Eastleigh Voice reported in July. "We do not need another task force on school unrest," its National Secretary, Ndung'u Wangenye, told the Daily Nation. He called instead for "political will and commitment to implement those recommendations" from earlier reports.

Boaz Waruku, a strategist with the Elimu Bora Working Group, said: "The country does not have a shortage of reports on school unrest." He added: "What is missing is not information, it's political will."

The National Parents Association backed the idea with a condition. "We support the task force because the country needs answers, but it should not start from scratch," its chairman, Silas Obuhatsa, said. Mr Obuhatsa is now one of the members named in the notice.