6,000 new Form One slots created

About 6,000 Form One slots have been created following the creation of 30 national schools.

Out of these 3,240 spaces will be reserved for boys with the girls taking up the rest - 2,760 - according to Education permanent secretary James ole Kiyiapi.

This will give many top pupils, who would have been admitted to provincial schools, the opportunity to join the prestigious institutions.

The increase will bring the number of students in the 48 national schools countrywide to 10,427, up from 4,517 admitted last year.

Selection data

“The selection data is currently being analysed by Education ministry officials and results will be announced on January 13,” Prof Kiyiapi said.

Pangani Girls, Kanga High, Kisii High, Nyabururu Girls and Kakamega High are expected to have the highest intake of 270 students each.

Other elevated schools expected to admit many students are Chogoria Girls, Makueni Boys, Machakos Boys, Kagumo High and Kapsabet Boys.

These schools, alongside, Friends Kamusinga, Lugulu Girls, Bunyore Girls and Garissa High will admit 225 students.

Top ministry officials, led by senior deputy director of Education Francis Ngware, have been meeting at the Kenya Institute of Education to work out the selection.

Prof Kiyiapi said the technical team would look at available vacancies, county statistics and performance in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam.

He and Education Secretary George Godia have maintained that the contentious formula favouring pupils from public schools is still in force.

Last year, out of 4,517 Form One vacancies in national schools, 3,293 were reserved for candidates from public schools.

The rest — 1,224 — went to private schools.

“The idea here is to create equity and fairness when selecting the pupils to the national schools, as it is expounded in our Constitution,” Prof Godia said.

This year, 5,806 candidates scored 400 marks and above compared to last year’s 2,723.

Most of the top scores were from private schools. This means, therefore, that if the government applies the quota system, thousands of top scorers from such institutions would be locked out of national schools.

The formula works at two levels.

First is the district quota, which is arrived at by dividing the number of candidates in a district by the total number of candidates registered nationally and then multiplied with the number of places available in national schools.

At the second level, the number of candidates from either private or public schools is divided by the number of candidates nationally and then multiplied by the number of slots in national schools.

But the Kenya Private Schools Association has threatened to go to court if the government uses the formula this year.

Association chairman John Mwai said the government should be considerate to the plight of pupils in private schools too.