119,000 to miss Form One places

PHOTO | FILE Victory Junior Mombasa Academy pupils celebrate after being declared the top school in the 2012 KCPE exams in Mombasa County.

What you need to know:

  • It is certain, Education Permanent Secretary George Godia confirmed on Sunday, that no space in public secondary schools will be found for at least 119,000 pupils
  • The number of students enrolled in secondary school increased from 934,149 in 2005 to 1,919,055 by last year, according to the Education Ministry. This was a result of the subsidised secondary school education programmed launched in 2008
  • Meanwhile, secondary school teachers want the government to allow immediate admission of students as soon as they selected them to their schools

The selection of Form One students from the lot that sat last year’s KCPE exams starts Monday morning in Nairobi, but close to a half of the 800,000 pupils may not secure slots in public secondary schools.

Education Minister Mutula Kilonzo is expected to launch the week-long programme this morning at the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), where teachers from the 78 national schools will choose the best performers from around the country. However, this could yet again expose major challenge which the free primary school education programme has failed to deal with — transition to secondary school.

Out of the 811,930 candidates who sat the 2012 KCPE exams, only 416,900 candidates scored above 250 marks out of a possible 500.

There are only 7,297 public secondary schools. The 78 national schools will take the first 7,000 best performers.

Altogether, the public schools will take, at an average of 100 students each, some 416,900 students who scored above 250 marks.

That will leave some 400,000 students without guaranteed places, but there will still be room for some of the stronger students with less than 250 marks.

Lack of space

But it is certain, Education Permanent Secretary George Godia confirmed on Sunday, that no space in public secondary schools will be found for at least 119,000 pupils.

That lot will either have to attend private school, if their parents can afford it, or drop out of school altogether.

Kenya Union of Post-Primary Teachers (Kuppet) general secretary Akello Misori criticised the government for the high drop-out rate.

“Of course it is unconstitutional to leave out the more than 350,000 pupils just because they did not perform well in exams. This is because basic education, by law, is now up to Form 4,” he told the Nation.

He went on: “I think Kenyans also need to realise that this comes with a lot of responsibility. We will not just ask for more schools without considering how to get teachers to improve the teacher-student ratio.”

Kenya National Association of Parents secretary-general Musau Ndunda asked the government to find a way of taking in all primary school leavers.

“We see that as a serious problem. In fact, it is unfortunate that two years down the line (since the new Constitution was passed), there is still no policy on how to accommodate all children to Form Four,” he said.

The number of students enrolled in secondary school increased from 934,149 in 2005 to 1,919,055 by last year, according to the Education Ministry. This was a result of the subsidised secondary school education programmed launched in 2008.

Mr Kilonzo argued that some of the problems could be solved through the National Education Sector Support Programme.

Meanwhile, secondary school teachers want the government to allow immediate admission of students as soon as they selected them to their schools.

Kenya Secondary School Heads Association chairman John Awiti said this would help recover the time they wasted while waiting for the KCPE results.

Students will go for half-term holiday from February 27 to pave way for elections on March 4, and they could go into another break in April should there be a run-off for the presidential candidates.