Mounting complaints from parents over Grade 10 placements on Friday prompted the Ministry of Education to allow senior school principals to participate in the review process.
This marks a departure from the previous system, where the school heads were barred from involvement and all review requests had to be routed exclusively through a learner’s junior school.
Parents the Daily Nation spoke to reported persistent delays in downloading admission letters, mismatched placement information with admission letters differing from initial placements and SMS notifications, and learners being posted to distant day schools many kilometres from their homes.
They also expressed confusion over cluster placements, with high-performing students assigned to lower-tier schools (C4), while the criteria for national schools (C1) remained unclear.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba said in a statement on Friday that requests for further review will now be initiated either through the learner’s junior school or the senior school of interest, as the second review window opens on Tuesday next week.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba.
Photo credit: Lucy Wanjiru | Nation Media Group
“The requests shall be submitted by the head of institution through the placement portal and duly processed in accordance with the protocols already issued by the Ministry,” said Mr Ogamba.
The Education ministry had earlier given learners an opportunity to apply for a review of their initial placement and career pathways between December 23 and December 29, 2025. The review process was then officially concluded, with results made accessible on the placement portal.
According to the ministry, 143,821 Grade 9 learners who sought to revise their senior school placements had their requests rejected due to the absence of preferred subject combinations or lack of capacity in the selected schools.
In a statement dated December 30, 2025, Mr Ogamba said that of the 355,457 applications for review received after the initial placement results were released on December 19, only 211,636 were approved.
It has also emerged that some Grade 10 students were reassigned to different senior schools at the last minute, raising serious questions about the integrity of the placement portal.
Distraught parents have been camping in the corridors of Jogoo House, the Education ministry’s headquarters, seeking answers over the placement hitch, with reporting dates looming. Learners are expected to begin reporting to senior schools from January 12.
An officer at Jogoo House advised parents to write letters addressed to Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok outlining their concerns and attaching copies of their national identity cards and their children’s birth certificates for follow-up.
“Nobody is telling us how soon our complaints will be addressed, yet we are racing against time as learners are expected to report to senior schools starting January 12, which is just a few days away,” said a parent whose child was initially placed at Starehe Boys Centre but was later transferred to Oloolaiser High School in Ngong.
Another parent lamented that she downloaded an admission letter for Mary Hill Girls, despite her child having initially been placed at Starehe Girls Centre on the portal.
While some parents took to social media to vent their frustrations over the placement exercise, others opted to physically seek answers from institutions where their children had initially been placed.
At Starehe Centre, security guards barred anyone without an appointment from entering through the main gate, leaving hundreds of parents stranded outside. Only parents carrying the school’s admission letter were allowed entry after their children’s names were verified against a list at the gate.
A group of parents outside Starehe Boys Centre and School on January 2, 2025 where they had gone to seek clarity on the admission of their children for Grade 10.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
One parent said her child, who had initially been placed at Starehe Girls, later downloaded an admission letter showing she had been posted to a day school in Kisii, yet the family resides in Kirinyaga.
The parents’ frustrations have prompted MPs to demand a change of criteria. Bomet East MP Richard Yegon, Bomet Central MP Richard Kilel and Chepalungu MP Victor Koech said the admission of students to day secondary far away from their parents’ homes made attendance impractical.
“It is not possible for a student to trek over 30 kilometres daily to attend a school they have been called to,” Mr Yegon said at Kipyosit Primary School.
Mr Kilel said there were cases where learners had been posted to day schools in neighbouring counties.
“There are teething problems in the admission of the first batch of Grade 10 learners in public schools, which the ministry should address to avert a recurrence next year,” Mr Kilel said in Tumoiyot village.
“The instructions to secondary school principals should be to admit students as long as they qualify and as far as infrastructural facilities allow,” said Mr Koech.
Several parents also noted that the senior school indicated in SMS notifications differed from the one listed on the admission letters later downloaded from the placement portal.
“Even now, when I send a request to 22263, the SMS results and what is in the admission letter differ. This is after attempting to download the letter for days because the site appears to have technical issues,” lamented one parent.
The National Parents Association, however, has downplayed the placement crisis, saying it has received no official communication regarding students in national schools being reassigned to other institutions.
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba (left) and National Chairman, Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association Willy Kuria during the 48thKESSHA Annual National Conference for in Mombasa on June 25, 2025.
Photo credit: Kevin Odit | Nation Media Group
On Thursday, senior school heads called on the Ministry of Education to abandon the 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, the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (Kessha), said the Kenya Education Management Information System had effectively locked them out of the admissions process, leaving schools unaware of the academic profiles and regional balance of learners assigned to them.
Kessha Chairperson Willie Kuria said the previous system was more inclusive and transparent, ensuring both regional balance and equity across the 47 counties.
At the same time, Mr Ogamba on Friday announced that the government has released Sh44.24 billion in capitation for term one for learners in all public basic education institutions.
