Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba /FILE
The long wait for thousands of teachers who marked the 2025 national examinations has finally come to an end after the National Treasury released Sh1.5 billion to facilitate payment of their outstanding allowances.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba on Thursday announced that the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) had disbursed the balance of marking allowances to examiners who participated in the 2025 Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.
The announcement brings relief to teachers who had spent months demanding payment after administering and marking the country's biggest examination season.
In a statement, Ogamba said the payments were made after KNEC received Sh1.5 billion from the National Treasury on July 7, specifically to clear the outstanding balances.
"We are pleased to inform all examiners who participated in the marking of the 2025 Kenya Junior School Education Assessment and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination, that the balance of their marking allowances has been disbursed to their respective accounts by the Kenya National Examinations Council," the CS said.
The CS commended the examiners and other contracted professionals for their patience and dedication despite the prolonged delay.
"We commend the examiners and other contracted professionals for their professionalism, patience and continued commitment to fostering quality and credibility in our national assessments and examinations," Ogamba said.
The payments bring to a close months of uncertainty that had triggered growing frustration among teachers and drawn scrutiny from Parliament.
Teachers had repeatedly taken to social media to demand that KNEC honour its contractual obligations, saying they had completed their work months earlier but were yet to receive their allowances.
The 2025 national assessment season, which ran from October 17 to November, was the largest in Kenya's history, with more than 3.4 million candidates sitting various examinations and assessments.
The exercise covered the KCSE examination, the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) for Grade 6 learners and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) for Grade Nine learners.
To successfully conduct the exercise, KNEC deployed 342,687 contracted professionals, including examiners, invigilators, supervisors, centre managers, drivers and security personnel.
However, delays in releasing funds left thousands of contracted professionals waiting for months for their allowances.
The funding challenges stemmed from the 2025–26 budget, which initially did not provide funding for the administration of national examinations.
Following pressure from parliamentary education committees, the National Assembly later allocated Sh5.9 billion to KNEC against a requirement of Sh12.58 billion, leaving a significant financing gap.
The National Treasury subsequently provided additional funding, but payments to thousands of contracted professionals remained outstanding.
At the height of the dispute, about 45,000 KCSE and KJSEA examiners were owed approximately Sh2.7 billion.
In February, the Ministry of Education attributed the delays to budgetary and cash flow constraints affecting the release of funds.
The issue also reached Parliament after Emuhaya MP and Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) national chairperson Omboko Milemba demanded answers over the delayed payments, saying the affected teachers had rendered critical national service under demanding conditions and deserved prompt remuneration.
The prolonged wait also fuelled widespread speculation online, with fake posters and statements falsely attributed to KNEC chief executive David Njegere circulating on social media.
Some of the fabricated posts claimed the council lacked money to pay examiners, while others alleged payments had been delayed because of missing records for contracted professionals.
KNEC dismissed the claims as fake and urged the public not to be misled, while maintaining that it was working with the government to clear the outstanding dues.
With the release of the Sh1.5 billion by the National Treasury and confirmation that payments have now been credited to examiners' accounts, the government has brought to an end a dispute that had dominated online discussion among teachers for months.
