Salasya slams Raila’s proposal to devolve education
Mumias East Member of Parliament (MP) Peter Salasya has criticised Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga’s call to devolve the education sector.
In a statement on Thursday, August 14, 2025, Salsaya warned that such a move would cripple schools and disadvantage poor learners across the country.
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“Odinga hufikiria negative. He wants education to be devolved so that schools can be run like dispensaries, which lack even paracetamol,” he stated.
According to the legislator, the push to hand over education to county governments is not driven by the desire to improve learning but by political and financial interests.
“And he never comments on the performance of governors on dockets already devolved, like health,” he added.
Raila’s proposal
This comes hours after Raila called for the transfer of education management up to the secondary school level to county governments.
Speaking during the 2025 Devolution conference in Homa Bay on Thursday, August 14, 2025, the former Prime Minister said the current centralised system is outdated and inefficient, adding that it is wrong for the Ministry of Education to run schools from Nairobi.
“We must now break the cycle of managing our schools from far away. It is a shame to see a Minister of Education inspecting school structures in counties because that should be done by governors,” he said.
Raila recalled that during the constitution-making process, only Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) was devolved due to opposition from teachers’ unions.
He said the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) had threatened to mobilise against the new constitution if primary and secondary education were included in the devolution plan.
He argued that keeping primary and secondary education under national control has created inefficiencies and slowed service delivery.
Devolving the sector, he said, would enhance local accountability and empower governors to address education needs more effectively.
He also called for the scrapping of the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) and the National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF), saying their budgets should be redirected to counties.
“In the interest of efficiency and better service delivery, all monies currently managed by NG-CDF and NGAAF should be surrendered to counties,” he said.
