Six million people — including children who ought to be in classrooms — are not in school, the 2009 census results show.

Of these, 3.9 million are children of school-going age.

The 2.1 million others are adults who have never stepped into a school.

Though the Education ministry got the highest allocation in the last Budget — Sh170 billion — it will need more money to get these children into classrooms.

It will be a case of precariously balancing the retention of 14 million learners in schools and roping in the others while ensuring the quality of education does not suffer.

And while the report says there have been a gradual decline in the number of people who have never attended school, illiteracy levels are still high.

As at last year, the Kenya National Literacy Survey reported that there were 7.8 million illiterate youth and adults — two thirds of them female.

Apparently, the figure is much higher than that of people who never attended school at the time of the 2009 census.