Abstract:
Education is a vital tool in the development of any country including Kenya. Education plays a significant role in
economic, social and political development of a country. Education development would lead to accelerated
economic growth, more wealth and income distribution, greater quality of opportunity, availability of skilled
manpower, decline in population growth, long life, better health outcomes, low crimes rate, national unity and
political stability Otiato, (2009); Schultz, (1981); Harbison, (1973); Psacharopoulos,(1988); Abagi and Okech,
(1997); Amutabi, (2003) among others. This belief has made many countries including Kenya to invest immensely
in education to foster economic growth, productivity, contribute to national and social development thereby
reducing social inequality. It is against this backdrop that the Government of Kenya since independence made
education reform as its main objective since 1963. Arising from the above, education reform for innovation was
investigated. Historical method of study was used which utilized mainly secondary and primary sources of data.
The main sources of primary data were Government Commissions and other policy documents like Sessional
Papers, Acts of Parliaments related to education in Kenya after independence. The first one being Ominde
Commission of 1964 (GOK, 1964) up to Sessional Paper Number 1 of 2005 (MOE, 2005).The main sources of
secondary data includes written documents such as books, journals, newspapers among others. They formed the
basis of the discussion and analysis of the study. In this study, education reforms in Kenya has been investigated
to find out whether the education reforms are yielding innovation in education in line with Vision 2030.