Senior school heads are now calling on the Ministry of Education to abandon the current centralised Grade 10 placement system and revert to the former school-led admission process, citing growing confusion and lack of transparency.
The principals under their umbrella body, Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (Kessha), said the Kenya Education Management Information System (Kemis) has effectively locked them out of admissions, leaving schools unaware of the academic profiles and regional balance of learners assigned to them.
This comes amid complaints from parents that some learners were reassigned to different senior schools without requesting any review or transfer.
“Previously, we knew the students we were admitting, including their results and where they came from. For instance, a candidate from Kisauni could be admitted to Murang’a High School, ensuring a national melting pot. Now, we are only receiving names. We do not know their scores or their backgrounds,” Kessha chairperson Willie Kuria said.
He noted that the previous system, which utilized the NEMIS portal, was more involved and transparent, ensuring both regional balance and equity across the 47 counties.
Furthermore, unlike in previous years, principals currently have no access to the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) results of learners placed in their institutions.
“We do not know what marks place a student in a national, extra-county, or county school, and are waiting to see if merit has truly been followed. But we have fears,” he said.
Mr Kuria highlighted instances where a student with very high marks is placed in a Cluster Four (C4), which is a former sub-county school.
Some parents experienced difficulty while reviewing placements, citing technical issues on the portal that blocked them, even in cases of clear mismatches. The Ministry of Education has announced it will reopen the portal for revisions starting January 6, 2026.
Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (Kessha) National Chairman Willy Kuria addresses principals attending the 48th Kessha conference in Mombasa on June 24, 2025.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation Media Group
Mr Kuria, the Chief Principal of Murang’a High School, said his Grade 9 child, who scored 67 points, was placed in a local day school, but attempts to seek a review were unsuccessful due to system failures.
To address the chaos ahead of the January 12 reporting date, KESSHA is proposing a hybrid admissions model that would allow parents to approach schools directly to seek available vacancies, which would then be uploaded into KEMIS for approval by the Ministry of Education.
He said the ministry should allow principals to identify spaces left by students who fail to turn up and offer them to qualified applicants.
“The Ministry should revert to the old system where parents could seek vacancies and principals could feed that data into the portal with approval from the ministry. If 100 students placed in your school don’t show up, we should be allowed to fill those spaces,” Mr Kuria added.
There is growing concern among educators that the lack of a clear merit-based filter will erode the standards of the country’s top-tier institutions.
Principals are questioning why students with exceptionally high marks are being diverted to Cluster Four (C4) sub-county schools, while the criteria for Cluster One remain a mystery.
He said previously that if parents were unhappy with the school their children had been placed in, they were allowed to go to their school of choice and seek a vacancy upon approval from the MoE.
However, he refuted claims that principals have been demanding money to admit learners in the top-tier senior schools.
“We want students in our schools because, after all, there is capacity. How do you engage in corruption when you are actually looking for students? If you ask for money, the students will simply go to other schools,” Mr Kuria stated.
He said that any money requested from parents is strictly governed by Board of Management (BoM) approvals and is backed by official receipts. According to the chairperson, no principal has been caught in any corruption syndicate.
With only 11 days left before the 1.13 million pioneer Grade 9 learners start their senior school pathways, parents are at a crossroads.
