National ID cards. Students who have reached the age of 18 will be issued with identity cards and registered as voters while still in school if a new Bill before Parliament is passed.
Students who have reached the age of 18 will be issued with identity cards and registered as voters while still in school if a new Bill before Parliament is passed.
The Registration of Persons (Amendment) Bill, 2024, sponsored by Suba South MP Caroli Omondi, seeks to amend Section 107 of the Registration of Persons Act to allow for the registration of persons who are still in learning institutions.
“The principal registrar shall by the last day of the month of August each year, conduct a national registration programme to register all secondary school students eligible for registration as of the close of the programme,” the Bill reads.
“The principal registrar shall collect the particular required under section 5 (1) from all secondary school students eligible for registration between the date after the close of the programme and the last day of the month of December each year for the purpose of registration,” it adds.
According to the Bill, students will pay nothing for the issuance of the ID card and the important document will be delivered to their respective schools or to a designated place if the student has already left school.
“The principal registrar shall cause an identity card to be issued under the national registration programme to be delivered for collection free of charge,” reads the Bill.
The Bill now goes to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) for analysis, which will include a comparison with what is done in other jurisdictions and what it will cost the taxpayer to implement the proposal if it goes through.
The budget office will then present its findings to the National Assembly's Budget and Appropriations Committee, where the Bill's sponsor will be invited to defend the Bill before it is formally published and introduced for first reading.
The Bill is then subject to public participation before MPs debate it in the second reading.
If passed into law, it will come as a great relief to most students who normally struggle to obtain the vital document after leaving school.
The move will add around 1 million new young voters to the electoral roll each year, which will be a game changer in the political landscape as the political class scrambles to appeal to them each election period.
This year alone, a total of 965,000 students sat for the just-concluded Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.
The move will also help students, as IDs are required for registration with the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) and the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB).
The young people have been a major headache for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) in bringing them on board as voters, as the majority of them have been accused of shunning the exercise.
The move may also help the cash-strapped IEBC, which told MPs in July this year that it may not be able to conduct the continuous voter registration exercise due to the massive budget shortfall it suffered after the rejection of the Finance Bill, 2024.
The agency told the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee that the Sh87.5 million budget cut it suffered will affect its ability to maintain the Kenya Integrated Election Management Kits (KIEMs Kit) and licences, which are critical to registering voters and conducting by-elections.
Not only are young people failing to register to vote, but even those who register often fail to turn up on polling day, arguing that politicians only promise them lofty things that rarely materialise once they are in office.
The decline in youth registration reflects a broader pattern of voter apathy among Kenyans. In the run-up to the 2022 elections, the country's electoral body added just 2.5 million voters to the register, against a target of six million. This included people who had turned 18 since the country's last census in 2019. Between the 2013 and 2017 elections, the agency added 5.2 million voters.
According to the results of the 2019 population and census, 75 percent of the country's 47.6 million people are under the age of 35.
Despite blaming the government, young people have been accused of not voting for the leaders they want.
In June this year, Gen Z sustained massive anti-government protests that led to the dissolution of the entire cabinet and the rejection of the 2024 Finance Bill by President William Ruto.
