Beginning September 28 all students in public institutions, from nursery to university, will be issued with a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) number.
According to the Ministry of Education, the six-character UPI is an inaugural measure to hinder the occurrence of fake certificates, curb the theft of public funds through ghost teachers and check the exaggerated student enrolment figures.
The number will be similar to the PIN issued by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and in like manner, will track the progress of a student all through their academic life.
Students taking the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams this year will be allocated the UPIs between August 29 and September 5.
Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) officials have revealed that they habve enhanced security featutres on the system in preparation for the new registrations.
"We have introduced photographs and a raft of security features to curb forgery," one official revealed.
Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i has described the Kenya National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) as "the single source of truth for information."
He has further warned institiutions that may try to evade registration onto the education system.
"We will close down all schools that will not be in our database," Dr Matiang'i warned.
