Form One selection team meets Monday over parents' complaints

A team from the Ministry of Education tasked with placing students in secondary schools will on Monday meet to address concerns raised by parents.

The concerns raised include the placing of students without disabilities in special needs education schools and gender mismatch where female students were placed in boy schools or the vice versa.

For instance Manogo Keith Mbwaya has been selected to join Machakos Secondary School for the Deaf yet she suffers no hearing impairment. Her mother said the girl was handed a school she did not select and has no disability.

“I wonder how this exercise was being done. The girl had selected Mbooni Girls,” said the mother.

Another pupil Purity Jerotich, who is not visually impaired, has been selected to join St Lucy’s High School for the visually impaired. 

Jerotich, a former pupil at Kerio Valley Oasis academy in Marakwet East said she does not understand how she was placed in the school for the visually impaired.

Another male school in Nairobi who asked not to be named was placed in an all girl’s school.

The selection panel blamed the students for the selection of schools, saying students were placed in schools that they had picked.

For instance, the boy who was selected to join a girl’s school had chosen all girl schools.

“This work is done by a computer and it cannot place a student in a school that he or she did not select,” said a member of the selection panel who admitted that cases are many but will be addressed on Monday.

Another officials involved in the selection said there is need for sensitisation of academic masters in order to guide pupils accordingly.

“These pupils selected the schools and it appears they did not get proper guidance from their teachers,” said an education official.