Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok has blamed school heads who have yet to submit their school's data for verification for the delay in capitation disbursement.
Speaking on Sunday, Bitok relayed that only 3,000 schools of the 22,000 total had received their capitation because the auditing process was still ongoing.
The audit was ordered by the Auditor General and Members of Parliament after it was discovered that billions were lost in school capitation payments to non-existent schools.
Principals and sub-county Directors of Education are expected to submit the data for verification to ensure the incident does not recur.
Bitok revealed that the process was taking too long because only 3,000 had been successfully verified after submitting the correct data and the correct number of students.
"I have asked the team here to work throughout the weekend to ensure that they wire the money as soon as possible. We are anticipating that by the end of next week, all our schools, all 22,000, will have received the capitation," Bitok said.
"Otherwise, I want to call upon all the principals and all the sub-county directors of education who have not submitted data in the correct format to do so expeditiously, because it is that data that we are relying on to verify the number of students and the number of schools and to make sure that the right schools and the right candidates get their capitation."
Bitok's update comes just a week after the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) warned that schools might be forced to close before mid-term if the government fails to release capitation funds for the third term on time.
Speaking during a press briefing on August 31, the union's Chairperson, Omboko Milemba, called on the Treasury to ensure that school capitation is released by September 1, to avert school disruption.
Insisting that the delay had significantly crippled school heads' ability to effectively manage the institutions, he claimed that it denied learners an opportunity to access quality education.
"In the first term, some schools closed earlier because there was no money in the schools, so we are insisting that the government has a responsibility to release the money to schools so that the learners can get quality education," Milemba said.
"We will not stop telling them to release the funds because teachers are suffering, principals, and of course the learners, because if there is no money by midterm, then we shall be asking the principals to close the schools," he added.
