Education and Skills

Education and Skills
Theme
Pillar	Citizen's Lives

Education and Skills (Kiswahili: Elimu na ujuzi) is a theme of the Citizen's Lives pillar. It covers schooling from pre-primary to university, vocational and technical training, and the skills young people on the coast need for work, including in maritime trades. The gap between counties is wide: in the 2019 census, 44.0 per cent of Tana River residents aged three and over had never attended school, against 9.2 per cent in Mombasa and 16.3 per cent nationally.

What this page is for

This is the shared page for education and skills on the coast: please add the projects, organisations, data and stakeholder views you know about, so that everyone can read them side by side.

Education and Skills on the coast today

In the 2019 census, the share of people aged three and over who had never been to school was 9.0 per cent in Taita-Taveta, 9.2 per cent in Mombasa, 18.9 per cent in Kilifi, 20.1 per cent in Lamu, 24.5 per cent in Kwale and 44.0 per cent in Tana River. Tana River's county plan reports an adult literacy rate of 33.9 per cent, a primary teacher-to-pupil ratio of 1 to 55, a primary dropout rate of 40 per cent and a transition rate to secondary school of 48 per cent.

Counties run pre-primary education and vocational training centres (VTCs), and most report growth over their last plan period. Kilifi says it built 785 classrooms and hired 1,284 early childhood teachers, cutting its pre-primary teacher-to-pupil ratio from 1 to 204 to 1 to 37, while VTC enrolment rose from 3,291 to 7,600 students. Taita-Taveta had 31 operational VTCs and certified 7,000 trainees. Lamu offers full scholarships to VTC trainees and has opened 11 satellite colleges, including on Faza, Pate and Siyu.

Counties also pay bursaries for secondary and higher education. Mombasa's Elimu Fund supported 55,165 students over the last plan period, Taita-Taveta awarded bursaries worth KES 196.5 million to 19,169 students, and Kwale's Elimu Ni Sasa scheme, launched in 2013, has sponsored more than 30,000 students, with its annual budget raised from KES 400 million to KES 500 million in 2024.

For maritime skills, Bandari Maritime Academy in Mombasa, owned by the Kenya Ports Authority, had 250 deck and 270 engine students enrolled in early 2026, but about 120 graduates could not obtain officer licences for lack of sea time.

Plans and policy

Nationally, the Fourth Medium Term Plan 2023-2027 carries forward the competency-based curriculum, universal secondary education and investment in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Its TVET expansion project aims to build and equip institutions in 52 constituencies, equip 72 existing ones and recruit 2,000 technical trainers, alongside digital labs in 144 TVET institutions. The first learners under the new system are moving into senior school, and in September 2025 the Education Cabinet Secretary, Julius Ogamba, said at a conference in Mombasa that basic education still needed 137,500 more teachers, with the gaps most acute in specialised subjects.

At regional level, the GoBlue programme, funded by the European Union and GIZ and channelled through the Jumuiya ya Kaunti za Pwani, has trained young people from the six counties in maritime security, tourism and hospitality, and boat repair, with an aim of creating jobs for more than 3,000 young people. The Kilifi, Mombasa and Tana River plans for 2023-2027 each list the same education measures: larger bursary allocations for poor families, fewer pupils per early childhood teacher, better early childhood and TVET facilities, and subsidised vocational training. Mombasa reports that the share of children under five attending school rose only from 13 to 16 per cent over its last plan period.

Who is involved

The Ministry of Education and the Teachers Service Commission run primary and secondary schooling and employ teachers. County education departments run pre-primary centres, VTCs and bursary funds such as Mombasa's Elimu Fund and Kwale's Elimu Ni Sasa. Universities include Pwani University in Kilifi, chartered in 2013 with more than 8,500 students, and the Technical University of Mombasa, which grew out of Mombasa Polytechnic University College in 2013. Bandari Maritime Academy works with shipping lines such as CMA CGM and with crewing agencies to place cadets at sea. The EU, GIZ and the Jumuiya fund and coordinate GoBlue training. The Controller of Budget approves county spending, including bursaries. Related project: Pwani Space University.

Open questions

Can counties keep paying school bursaries? In January 2025 the Controller of Budget, Margaret Nyakang'o, told counties that bursaries for primary and secondary students are a national function and limited county support to pre-primary education, village polytechnics, home craft centres and childcare facilities; High Court orders in 2025 then barred new county bursaries outside that scope unless a county signs an intergovernmental agreement with the national government. Governors argued that they were spending money already in their budgets and that students already in school should not lose support. Kwale's governor, Fatuma Achani, said that "our children have already lost valuable learning time".

Does training lead to jobs? GoBlue's target of jobs for more than 3,000 young people was a goal, and no published count of trainees placed in work was found. At Bandari Maritime Academy, graduates waiting for sea time to qualify as officers show how a course alone may not be enough.

Where will the teachers come from? Tana River reports one primary teacher for every 55 pupils, while the national government says specialised subjects in the new curriculum face the sharpest shortages.

Coverage the plan expects

• technical and vocational training
• maritime skills
• youth employment
• school outcomes by county
• county bursaries and scholarships

Projects

Pwani Space University

A project page joins this theme by naming it as the theme in its infobox. To start one:

Sources

• 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, Volume IV, KNBS, 2019
• Tana River County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Tana River, 2023
• Kilifi County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Kilifi, 2023
• Mombasa County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Mombasa, 2023
• Taita Taveta County Integrated Development Plan 2023-2027, County Government of Taita Taveta, 2023
• Fourth Medium Term Plan 2023-2027, Government of Kenya, 2024
• Controller of Budget facing pressure from counties, politicians over bursaries, The Standard, 2026
• 136 students receive training in the blue economy sector, Kenya News Agency, 2022