Three-year agreement puts technology at the heart of school leadership training as Kenya deepens the Competency-Based Education rollout
Heads of Institutions and teachers across Kenya stand to gain training in digital tools and real-time learner data to help lift literacy and numeracy, under a three-year partnership signed today by the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI) and education programmes implementor EIDU.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed at KEMI’s offices in Nairobi, brings EIDU’s digital learning and assessment experience into KEMI’s national training for school leaders. That training covers Heads of Institutions, deputy heads, education managers and Boards of Management.
The partnership comes as schools work to meet the demands of Competency-Based Education (CBE). The 2023 Report of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform called on the Ministry of Education and sector stakeholders to “prioritise the retooling of teachers in line with the new requirements of the CBC.” The reforms call for stronger instructional leadership, continuous assessment and decisions based on evidence of what learners can actually do.
KEMI will lead the partnership, in line with its national mandate. It will provide trainers and facilitators to co-design and co-deliver programmes, open its training facilities and its network of school heads, and endorse or accredit the programmes the two institutions develop together.
EIDU will offer technical assistance, curriculum-aligned digital content, access to its learning platforms and data systems, and training for KEMI’s facilitators, as agreed in joint work plans. Together, the partners will design programmes, share resources within the law, carry out agreed work plans, and monitor, evaluate and report on results. Each institution will name a Partnership Focal Person to coordinate the work day to day.
Speaking at the signing ceremony at KEMI’s headquarters in Nairobi, KEMI Chief Executive Officer Dr. Maurice Odondo said the partnership would help close a gap at the foundational level of education by strengthening the preparation of the school leaders and teachers who shape how children learn.
“As we speak today, the foundational level of education in this country has not received full attention. Working together, we will be able to address that gap, so that learners move to upper primary and finally to senior school well grounded,” he said.
Dr. Odondo said school leadership was central to that effort: “When the school leader is well prepared, all other issues fall properly in place.”
He added that progress in the sector depends on collaboration within government structures: “When we pull together and co-create, we will be able to transform this sector in a more meaningful way.”
On his part, EIDU Managing Director Mr. Fredrick Seda, said the partnership would carry lessons from classrooms into national leadership training.
“Every day we see what becomes possible when a teacher has the right tools and timely data on each child. KEMI reaches the leaders of every school in this country. By working alongside KEMI, we can help make sure those lessons reach the head teacher in a rural school as much as one in the city,” he said.
EIDU’s digital learning programme already reaches about 790,000 learners in some 12,700 public schools across 32 counties, delivered in partnership with county governments and the Ministry of Education. An independent randomised controlled trial in Kenyan pre-primary classrooms, published in the peer-reviewed journal Research Papers in Education in 2026, found that learners using EIDU gained the equivalent of about six extra months of learning in a single school year.
A Joint Steering Committee led by the KEMI CEO and the EIDU Managing Director will oversee the partnership. It will set annual work plans and track progress, with a mid-term review planned after 18 months. The MOU takes effect, 2nd November 2026, and runs for three years, to November 2029.