Ombudsman orders ministry to bin unlawful Sh30 SMS charge for Grade 10 placement results

The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the Ministry of Education to immediately stop charging parents, guardians, and learners an exorbitant Sh30 premium SMS fee to access Senior Secondary School (Grade 10) placement results.

In a ruling delivered by Access to Information Commissioner Dorothy Jemator on Friday, the Commission directed the State Department for Basic Education, through Principal Secretary Julius Bitok, to urgently review its cost structure and engage mobile service providers to bring the charges within reasonable and lawful parameters, declaring the fee unconstitutional and a violation of citizens’ right to information.

“The State Department for Basic Education is directed to take policy and administrative actions to ensure that the cost of accessing placement results via SMS is brought within reasonable parameters, or face further regulatory action,” Jemator ruled.

The directive follows a formal complaint lodged on December 20, 2025, by an aggrieved member of the public under the Access to Information Act, 2016, protesting the premium fee attached to the SMS query service on short code 22263, which parents and students were required to use to discover school placements following the release of the Kenya Junior Secondary Education Assessment (KJSEA) exam results.

While the Ministry had designated the SMS platform as a key channel for accessing placement results, the Commission found that a free online portal, https://placementeducation.go.ke, existed as an alternative. However, the Ministry had done little to publicise the free option, effectively funneling unsuspecting parents toward the paid SMS service. 

“The Commission noted that the Ministry did not provide adequate guiding information on the alternative access methods to enable citizens to make informed decisions on the access methods, thus avoiding incurring unnecessary costs,” Jemator said, a finding likely to embarrass the Ministry at a time when the government has repeatedly pledged to make public services more accessible and affordable.

Anchoring its decision in Article 35 of the Constitution, which guarantees every citizen the right to access information held by the State, the Commission also cited Section 12 of the Access to Information Act, 2016, which strictly limits the fees that public institutions can charge. 

The law permits only recovery of actual costs of reproducing or supplying information. Since the placement results already existed in digital format, the Ombudsman found no legitimate basis for the Sh30 fee.

 “The Senior Secondary School’s placement results were available with the Department in digital format, and thus the need to make copies or supply such copies did not arise,” the Commissioner noted.

The ruling also highlighted children’s constitutional rights, referencing Articles 43(1)(f) and 53(1)(b), which guarantee every child the right to free and compulsory basic education, and argued that erecting a financial barrier, however small, to information about school placements undermines those guarantees, particularly for low-income families.

In its directive, the Ombudsman ordered the Ministry to engage all citizens and stakeholders in the dissemination of placement results and put in place adequate mechanisms for proactive access. 

The Ministry was further instructed to carry out awareness-raising campaigns across all results access channels, take immediate policy and administrative action to reduce SMS access costs, and proactively publish a full breakdown of cost components for public accountability.

 “The State Department for Basic Education should proactively publish the policy or administrative actions taken on ensuring access to Senior Secondary School placement results are reasonable, including the constitutive components of the costs thereof,” the Commissioner demanded, signalling that the Ombudsman will be watching for compliance.

The decision comes at a sensitive moment for the Ministry, which is still navigating public anxiety over the rollout of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) and the transition to Senior Secondary School.

For many Kenyan families, especially in rural and low-income areas where mobile internet access remains limited, the Sh30 SMS charge was not merely inconvenient. 

The fee was often the only practical means of finding out where children had been placed, effectively acting as an effective tax on a fundamental right.