Form One selection mode set to change

The Education ministry has admitted that the contentious method used in selecting students to national secondary schools has failed.

Education permanent secretary James Ole Kiyiapi on Thursday said the ministry had set up an 11-member task force to review the selection rules introduced last year.

Prof Kiyiapi noted that ministry officials had resorted to manually re-selecting top scorers in last year’s KCPE exams to national schools of their choice. “For the last three weeks we have been reviewing manually the national school choices of all pupils who scored 400 marks and above,” he told journalists at Jogoo House.

Hundreds of top scorers, mainly from private primary schools, had missed places in secondary schools of their choice after those from public primary schools were favoured in the selection. (READ: Private school pupils suffer fresh blow in Form One selection)

“I wish to state here that most pupils who scored above 400 marks in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exams have now been selected to schools of their choice,” Prof Kiyiapi said.

The PS said the team would start reviewing the selection criteria on Monday next week and the outcome would be known in a month’s time. “This will include disclosing the full details of how the formula will work and take into consideration aspects such as equity and regional disparities,” he said.

Four members of the taskforce will be drawn from the Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) and five others from the Directorate of Basic Education.

Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman Cleopas Tirop and Mr Joseph Karuga of Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association will also sit in the team.

The move comes as a relief to private school owners, who have been involved in court battles to block the Form One selection rules.

The Education Ministry this year allocated private schools only 3,598 Form One slots in national secondary schools.

The rest, 6,684, were given to pupils from public primary schools in a method Education Minister Sam Ongeri said “promoted equity, access, national and geographical diversity”.

Schools favoured

For instance, a pupil from northern Kenya who scored 350 marks out of a possible 500 had a higher chance of joining a national school than one from Nairobi with 400 marks.

In the previous year, out of 4,517 Form One vacancies in national secondary schools, 3,293 were reserved for candidates from public primary schools.

The rest, 1,224, went to private schools with actual details of how the rules worked shrouded in mystery.