Race starts for Form One slots amid roll out of free learning

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i. He will launch Form One selection process at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development on December 4, 2017. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The 18 schools are considered more prestigious than the other recently gazetted ones.
  • Dr Matiang’i said the form one selection exercise is expected to be complete by December 12.

The race for Form One slots for candidates who sat this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination will officially start Monday.

The process will be launched at 8:30am by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.

It will only cover candidates joining the 105 national schools across the country. On Friday, the exercise to pick candidates joining extra-county schools will start.

NATIONAL SCHOOLS

Top officials at the Education ministry have been in Naivasha for the past one week to finalise the list of candidates who will join national schools.

Already, the ministry has asked all principals of boarding schools to provide the necessary details to enable candidates access the selection results online.

“Candidates joining form one in boarding schools will be accessing their instructions online,” said a circular to all principals by Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang and signed by acting Director General, Basic Education, Robert Masese.

A total of 993,718 candidates sat the examination. Of these, 498,775 were boys and 494,943 girls.

While releasing the results, Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said all candidates who scored 400 marks and above will be admitted to national schools irrespective of whether they sat their exams in private or public schools.

Dr Matiang’i said the form one selection exercise is expected to be complete by December 12.

NIGHTMARE

“It is the Ministry of Education’s plan that candidates, together with their parents and guardians, must know the schools where their children will be admitted to in January,” said the CS.

He said parents would not go through the annual nightmare of school placement since the government had put in place measures to ensure that all candidates are admitted to secondary schools.

“Placement of candidates into public secondary schools will be based on merit, quotas, equity, affirmative action and student choice. Efforts will also be made to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds continue with their education when the selection is done,” he said.

The CS said the government had already released a circular outlining details of the planned programme, of which the government has set aside Sh56 billion already.

“What this means is that, from January, no child will be required to pay tuition fees in any public secondary school. This is a big scale-up from the free day learning programme that has been running in all public secondary schools,” he said.

The CS went on: “It is now clear that the Jubilee Government is committed to ensure that every child gets access to education at all levels. We must not forget that the Government now pays examination fees for candidates in all public and private primary and secondary schools.”

On Tuesday during his inauguration, President Uhuru Kenyatta reinforced the message, saying all candidates who sat the examination must know their Form One placement by Christmas.

This year, 9,848 candidates scored more than 401 marks, compared with last year’s 5,143, while 217,307 candidates scored between 301 and 400 marks, compared with 207,141 last year.

BEST SCHOOLS

Another 529,897 scored between 201 and 300 marks, against last year’s 501,552, while 234,308 got 101 to 200 marks compared with 221,438 last year.

Only 2,360 candidates scored less than 100 marks, compared with last year’s 6,747.

This means the scramble for the best schools will once again be high. Under the current guidelines developed in 2015, Standard Eight pupils are allowed to pick only one elite national school when making their choices in a bid to eliminate cut-throat competition for places.

In the 2016 KCPE examination, 790,680 of the 942,021 candidates who sat the examination joined secondary schools early this year.

National schools absorbed 24,795, extra counties 65,331, county schools 133,785, sub-county schools 492,576, special schools 1,449 and private schools 72,744.

Implementation of free day secondary learning will see 903,200 students join public schools and about 90,000 get slots in private schools.

ONLINE

Dr Matiang’i said that, just like last year, students will get their admission letters online. Under the new rules, the 105 national schools were grouped into four clusters, with each candidate required to pick only one school from each cluster.

The 18 schools considered more prestigious than the other recently gazetted ones were all put in the third cluster, meaning no candidate can select any two of them. The schools include Alliance Boys, Alliance Girls, Mangu High, Maseno, Starehe Boys, Starehe Girls, Nairobi School, Lenana School and Kenya High School.

Others are Moi Forces Lanet, Moi Forces Academy, Utumishi Academy, Moi Girls Eldoret, Nakuru Boys, Nakuru Girls, Maryhill Girls, Loreto Limuru and Limuru Girls.

A total of 30 national schools, most of which used to be top provincial schools, were lumped in cluster one. They include Pangani Girls, Maranda Boys, Lugulu Girls, Friends School Kamusinga, Meru School, Kapsabet Boys, Kisii School, Kakamega School and Mama Ngina Girls in Mombasa.

To address the nightmare that will come with 100 per cent enrolment, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is collecting data from public day schools in a bid to address teacher shortages.