Form One selection for the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam candidates will be completed by January 16, just one week before schools reopen.
Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu said completion of the selection is aimed at giving parents adequate time to prepare their children to join secondary school. He, however did not indicate the date when the learners will join Form One.
“The Ministry is determined to place the 2022 KCPE candidates in secondary schools as soon as possible ...The actual Form One selection exercise for all categories of schools will be concluded on January 16, 2023.”
The placement to secondary school is computerised, and learners are placed based on factors such as their performance, overall performance, their school choices and capacity of the schools. The ministry also uses affirmative action to place learners in national schools, where all top five candidates of either gender from every sub-county are placed in top schools based on their choices.
Candidates select 11 schools before they sit the exam. They pick four national schools – one from each from four clusters.
For extra-county schools, the ministry uses a 15:35:50 ratio, with the host sub-county getting 15 per cent of the vacancies, the county gets 35 per cent while candidates from other regions get 50 per cent. Candidates select three extra-county schools.
All special needs institutions are categorised as national schools and so admit learners from all over the country.
There are 112 national schools, 776 extra-county, 1,301 county, 6,297 sub-county and 1,301 private secondary schools. There are 1,803 public boarding secondary schools and 479 private ones. This is against 5,029 public and 432 private day schools. Those that have both boarding and day wings are 390 (private) and 2,245 (public).
Inmates, overage candidates and candidates from refugee camps are not placed in secondary schools.
A total of 1,233,852 candidates sat the 2022 examinations with all qualifying for admission to Form One in line with the government’s 100 per cent transition policy.
Of the candidates, 620,965 (50.32 per cent) were boys while 612,887 (49.6 per cent) were girls, a clear indication that the country has achieved gender parity at primary school level.
“All the candidates whose results I am releasing today will be admitted to Form One under the 100 per cent transition policy. There should be no case of a guardian or parent keeping their children at home when admission to Form One is opened up,” said Mr Machogu.
The candidates were examined in English, mathematics, science, Kiswahili, and social studies and religious education – on November 28-30, 2022.
This is the second-last KCPE exam, with the last 8-4-4 cohort set to complete primary school next year, giving way to the competency-based curriculum (CBC).
Mr Solomon Munene, the national vice-chairperson of the Kenya Private Schools Association called for fairness in allocation of slots to top secondary schools. He claimed that the selection has in the past disadvantaged learners from private schools.
“Let us reward hard work and let all candidates be able to access the secondary schools of their choice as per their performance.,” he said.
He also asked the government to include private secondary schools in the selection and placement and give them capitation like it does for public secondary schools.
