Form One selection blow for rich schools

File | Nation
KCPE candidates at Menengai Primary School in Nakuru Municipality check their exam results at the school’s notice board last month.

What you need to know:

  • New policy ends dominance of private academies in national school admissions

A new policy was announced on Tuesday which will make it easier for bright students from poor families to join prestigious public secondary schools.

Candidates from private academies, who now take up as much as 90 per cent of Form One places in national schools, will now find it more difficult to be admitted.

Admission to the best public secondary schools, such as Alliance High, will depend on where the child comes from and whether he or she attended a public or private primary school.

The bulk of the places in national schools will be reserved for students who attended public schools.

In the past, the schools merely picked the best candidates, most of who came from wealthy private schools which had the money for the best teachers and teaching materials.

Out the 4,517 Form One vacancies in the 18 national schools, 3,293 will be reserved for candidates from public schools. The other 1,224 places will go to best performing boys and girls from private schools.

Announcing this major policy shift on Tuesday as he launched this year’s Form One selection, Education minister Sam Ongeri said the decision was informed by the provisions of the new Constitution, which place emphasis on equity, fairness, unity and national cohesion.

But the new admission criteria quickly ran into controversy, with private investors in education demanding a reversal, arguing that it compromised merit at the altar of political populism.

The Kenya Parents Association and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Teachers welcomed the move, terming it was timely.

Speaking at the Kenya Institute of Education, Prof Ongeri said: “In a bid to meet the equity provision, selection of candidates to join national schools this year will take into account the number of candidates who took KCPE from private schools as compared to those from public schools.”

He said the formula used to arrive at the allocations was based on percentages of enrolment in public and private schools plus district quotas.

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 since there are national schools like Starehe, Moi Forces in Nairobi and Lanet and Utumishi which cater for special cadres of candidates, the overall percentage is 27 per cent for private and 73 per cent for public.

Last year, some 746,107 candidates sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and 107,514 — representing 14.41 per cent — were in private schools. The bulk of the candidates, 638,593 or 85.59 per cent, were in public schools.

“This is what has informed the distribution of Form One places in national schools on the principle of equitable distribution of opportunities,” said Prof Ongeri.

The implication of this is that candidates from private schools will need higher grades to enter a national school compared to their colleagues from public institutions.