It has been the norm to collect Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education. This will however change in the near future as plans are underway to have the certificates collected at government offices.

According to Education CS Julius Ogamba, the certificates will be collected at the Sub-county education offices.

While appearing before the National Assembly’s Education Committee, Ogamba said that the changes have been warranted by the fact that school administrations have continued to withhold certificates despite earlier directives to release them unconditionally.

He termed the practice as illegal and against the law.

In most cases, schools withhold certificates due to fee arrears. The affected students however end up not pursuing higher education because of lack of the important document.

The new directive on certificate collection comes at a time when MPs are mounting pressure on the ministry to ensure that certificates are released to students so that they can secure jobs they have been denied because of lack of proper documents.

MPs in the Education committee added that many whose certificates are still in schools’ custody have been forced to turn to unskilled labour.

This comes just days after Ogamba issued another directive to schools to release certificates.

Schools administration are however reluctant to comply, arguing that they are owed over Ksh20 billion of fee arrears.

In 2019, the late George Magoha, who was Education CS then had recommended that students who are genuinely unable to clear their fee balances to be allowed to pick their certificates without conditions while those who are able to clear balances to do so before the documents are released to them.

He further recommended listing school fees defaulters on CRB to enforce payments. MPs however differed with him, terming the move as punitive.

If the new directive on KCSE certificates collection pushes through, it is not clear whether this will be applied to CBC learners.