Long holiday for students as schools reopen on January 8
Students arrive in Eldoret town to catch a bus to their homes following closing of schools for a past holiday season.
Learners in primary and secondary schools as well as teachers training colleges will enjoy a 10-week holiday before schools reopen early next year. This is according to the term dates schedule released by the Ministry of Education on Friday.
Schools are set to officially close on October 27, 2023 to pave way for national examinations. The ministry has announced that learning will resume on January 8, 2024 for Term I. This means learners will be at home for 72 days as opposed to the two-week breaks they had at the end of Term I and II.
The 2024 academic calendar will also mark the first time that schools will be following the regular calendar since 2020 when it was disrupted by Covid-19 pandemic. The academic year began on January 23, 2023 after national examinations went into late December.
In 2021 and 2022 there were four school terms packed in one calendar year, instead of the usual three to make up for time lost during the 2020 lockdown.
Term I of 2014 will have 13 weeks which will run from January 8 to April 5. Schools will then reopen for Term II on April 29, 2024, after a three-week break, and end on August 2, 2024.
Learners then will take a three-week break until August 26, 2024, when schools will reopen for the last term of the year.
Term III, which will be 9 weeks long, will end on October 25, 2024, paving way for national examinations. Term I and II will each have a three-day half-term break.
Next year, there will be no Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations and the last 8-4-4 cohort will leave primary school in two weeks’ time on November 2, 2023. Next year, the learners will again enjoy the 10-week end-of-year holidays.
This year's KCPE examinations will begin October 30, 2023, alongside the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment for learners in Grade 6. The national exams will end on November 2, 2023.
The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education will then commence on November 3, 2023 and end on November 24, 2023. Marking of the examinations will be done between November 27, 2023 and December 15, 2023.
