Kenya's public day senior schools charge no fees; boarding capped at KSh 53,554

A child starting Grade 10 in a Kenyan public day senior school pays no fees, and one in a public boarding school pays up to KSh 53,554 a year, under the fee structure that Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Migos Ogamba gazetted on 6 February 2026. Capital FM and The Star reported the notice, which took effect on 5 January 2026.

Grade 9 learners sit the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) from 26 to 30 October 2026, after a rehearsal scheduled for 23 October. First-session papers start at 8.30am, according to the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) timetable published by The Star on 4 March 2026. The Star reported on 11 December 2025 that KJSEA results also determine which senior secondary schools learners move to.

On 2 January 2026 the Ministry of Education said the government "will continue to provide capitation at the rate of Ksh. 22,244 per learner per year", and that a circular of the same date affirmed that fees payable by learners in senior schools remain unchanged. The February gazette notice sets the amounts by type of school.

Source: Kenya Gazette notice of 6 February 2026 signed by the Cabinet Secretary for Education, as reported by Capital FM, The Star and Eastleigh Voice; Ministry of Education press statement, 2 January 2026.

The KSh 22,244 is split across six items: KSh 4,144 for tuition, KSh 1,500 for activities, KSh 2,000 for medical cover and insurance, KSh 200 for SMASSE, KSh 9,400 for administration and other costs, and KSh 5,000 for maintenance and improvement.

Fees are paid over the three terms in a 50:30:20 ratio, and any future change must be approved by the Cabinet Secretary and gazetted. Ogamba said no public school may charge tuition or any other extra fees or levies outside the structure. The ministry's 2 January statement told school heads to "desist from imposing any extra levies or fees" and said it would deal firmly with verified cases.

Earlier reports gave a different picture. Citizen Digital reported on 4 November 2025 that new guidelines had scrapped the grouping of secondary schools by infrastructure and location, and that parents of boarders would all pay a standard fee of KSh 53,000 a year. On 6 November it quoted Ogamba as saying "there has been no revision of boarding fees, or any other fees, payable by learners". The gazette notice sets two boarding ceilings, KSh 53,554 and KSh 40,535.

The 2 January statement also said the government had released KSh 44,245,066,500.85 as Term 1 capitation for public basic education in 2026. Of that, KSh 26,082,798,334.75 was for Free Day Secondary Education, KSh 14,459,193,520.00 for Free Day Junior School Education and KSh 3,703,074,646.10 for Free Primary Education.

Daily Nation reported on 9 June 2025, citing the ministry's senior school guidelines, that Grade 10 learners take seven subjects, four of them compulsory: Mathematics, English, Kiswahili and Community Service Learning. There are three pathways: STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), Social Sciences, and Arts and Sports Science. Schools are either triple-pathway, offering all three, or dual-pathway, offering STEM with one of the other two, and every school must offer STEM. Education News listed the same four compulsory subjects on 16 December 2025.

This year's Grade 10 placements went through the ministry's portal, www.placement.education.go.ke, where joining instructions for placed learners were available from 30 December 2025. Grade 10 learners were told to report to their senior schools from 12 January 2026.