Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has made two new appointments to the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK), weeks after it was earmarked for dissolution by the Cabinet.
In a notice issued in the Kenya Gazette on February 14, Ogamba appointed two members to the council to serve for a period of three years, effective immediately.
"In exercise of the powers conferred by section 94(1), as read together with paragraph 2(1) of the Sixth Schedule of the Basic Education Act, 2013, the Cabinet Secretary for Education appoints—Under paragraph (i)—Yussuf Abdullahi Mohammed and Rosemary Talaso to be members of the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya, for a period of three (3) years, with effect from the 14th February 2025."
This follows a Cabinet meeting on January 21, where the executive recommended merging 42 state corporations into 20 and dissolving nine others.
Among the nine was NACONEK, a state corporation established in 2015 to ensure equitable and quality education for marginalised groups, particularly among pastoralist communities in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) regions.
A week after the announcement, the Pastoralists Parliamentary Group (PPG) publicly opposed the decision during their mid-term retreat in Naivasha.
They warned that the move would paralyse critical support to the education system in their community, as it not only offered feeding programmes in schools but also empowered communities by promoting the value of education, especially among girls.
“The Pastoralists Parliamentary Group (PPG) strongly opposes the Cabinet resolution of January 21, 2025, proposing the dissolution of the National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK),” the group retorted.
They also debunked the idea that NACONEK was a state corporation and described it as an equity council under the Ministry of Education.
"It (NACONEK) is a semi-autonomous government agency under the Ministry of Education. It functions as an equity council, advancing the interests of marginalised communities in accordance with Article 56(b) of the Constitution of Kenya," they stated.
Another grievance they aired was the fact that the Cabinet had failed to provide sufficient grounds for the dissolution, as its mandate did not overlap with any other corporation in terms of interests. They thus called for investigations into how the corporation ended up on the list.
The other eight state corporations set to face the same fate were the Kenya Tsetse Fly and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Council, Kenya Fish Marketing Authority, Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa, President's Award - Kenya, Nuclear Power and Energy Agency, Kenya National Commission for UNESCO, Kenya Film Classification Board, and LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority.
