• As part a plan to smoothen the transition from Secondary Education to Tertiary Education, the government plans to register all the 964000 KCSE candidates with Maisha Numbers . The issuance of the numbers is an effort by the government to help them be intergrated with relevant government agencies.
As part of a plan to smoothen the transition from secondary education to tertiary education, the government plans to register all the 964000 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates with Maisha numbers. The issuance of the numbers is an effort by the government to help them be integrated with relevant government agencies.

The Maisha card, is a unique personal Identification Number that will be a lifelong identity number from birth to death. It contains biometrics of the holder in a chip that is integrated with other data bases of the entire government. The new applicants will pay 300 kshs, while those seeking to replace old identification cards will pay 1000ksh.

According to the Principal Secretary, Immigration and Citizen Services, Prof. Julius Bitok, the government has planned to ensure that all citizens receive identity numbers within 5 years, promising that issuance of the Maisha card will happen within 5 days.

With the onset of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, the National Assembly Education Committee invited Immigrations Principal Secretary, Prof. Julius Bitok to explain measures his department was taking to ensure students get Identification Numbers as they join Universities and Tertiary institutions.

He indicated that the government was in the process of issuing all candidates with Maisha numbers that will be generated to the Maisha card once the holder attains the age of 18. However, those under 18 will still use Birth Certificates or their KCSE index numbers to get the cards.

‘’When you have this card, you don’t need anything else. You don’t need a driving license you don’t need an NHIF this card will do everything in Kenya,’’ he stated.

1.8M citizens have so far received the cards. While another 966000 are being processed and another 569914 are yet to be collected by their owners. The government projects that at least 20 million Kenyans will have upgraded their cards within 5 years.