How Long is KDF Cadet Training?

The period of time you will need to spend in training, after joining the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) as an Officer Cadet will depend on one thing. It will depend on whether you will be entering as a General Service Office cadet or as a Specialist cadet. If you are joining the KDF as a specialist cadet, then the period of training would be relatively brief – six or so months. But if you are joining the KDF as a General Service Officer cadet, the period of training would be somewhat longer – about three years – culminating in graduation with a Bachelor of Science (Military Science) degree and commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the KDF.

For you to join KDF as a specialist cadet (and thus only go through the brief [6 or so months] training program), you would need to be a qualified expert in one of the required fields. So it would mean that you already have a degree in something like medicine, law, education, religion/theology, surveying, GIS, engineering and so on. In that case, the only thing lacking in you, to make you a proper soldier, would be the rigorous military training – and this is the aspect you would be spending six or so months on.

On the other hand, if you are joining KDF as a General Service Office cadet – which you can do even if you just have solid good KCSE grades – you would have to undergo much deeper military training. This is because as a General Service Officer cadet, you would be expected, upon graduation, to take up key operational roles in the Kenyan military: hence the need for deeper and longer military training. As mentioned earlier, within that period of three years, you would be undergoing both highly advanced military training at the Kenya Military Academy in Lanet as well as a Bachelor of Science (Military Science and Security Studies) degree program at a university. Upon graduation, you would be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the KDF, and seconded to one of the services/units -- where you would probably be taken through further specialized training within the field you are deployed to.

The good thing about the KDF cadet training program is that it gives you very good life skills, which are likely to serve you well for very many years to come. And you also get to earn something, while undergoing KDF cadet training. And in spite of the long and rigorous training, you are almost assured that upon completing it, you would go right up to the top echelons of the Kenya Defense Forces, starting out as a subaltern/second-lieutenant, which is quite an honor. But of course, for all this to come true, you first need to be sure that you actually meet the KDF recruitment requirements. Nowadays, competition for KDF cadetships is very fierce, as there are very many people who meet the basic requirements for KDF cadet recruitment and who are also deeply interested. So the first hurdle for you to cross is that of actually getting recruited into the KDF cadetship program. Then you can start thinking of how long the KDF cadet training takes and whether KDF cadets are paid during training... among other considerations of that nature.