Private schools sue over Form One selection

Teachers follow proceedings during the launch of the Form One selection at
Coast Girls Secondary School in Mombasa County on Monday. [PHOTO: Kelvin
Karani/STANDARD]

NAIROBI: The controversy surrounding this year’s Form One selection moves to court next week as private schools seek to challenge the placement process.

It also emerged that high-end schools got the lion’s share of the national schools slots at sub county level even as the Ministry of Education kept mum over the selection formula.

Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) National Executive Committee made the decision Wednesday after ‘carefully analysing this years allocations.

The top decision making organ Wednesday said they will move to court next week to compel the Government to make public the selection criteria and also explain how candidates have been placed.

The association also wants the court to rule on the selection formula to be used in future Form One selection processes.

“We also want the ministry to table the district quota to guide selection of schools as 2015 registration of standard eight candidates gets underway,” reads a statement by KPSA.

Chief Executive Officer, Peter Ndoro, said the current standard eight candidates have been asked to choose national, extra county, county and sub county schools as they register for Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) yet they have not been furnished with district quotas.

Quota is the number of slots allocated per sub county or district. “Future selection of schools must be guided by statistics. For instance, let every candidate know that in their district, how many shall be selected to any of the 103 national schools,” he said.

He added: “The ministry has kept quiet on these statistics as a secret weapon to discriminate against candidates.”

Kpsa revealed that of the 20, 291 national schools slots, they were only allocated 4,200 places representing some 22 per cent.

Last year, private schools were allocated 25 per cent of the available slots.

Some 131,975 candidates sat last years KCPE in private schools across 7,200 examination centers.

Efforts to get official statistics from the ministry were futile as Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi and his Permanent Secretary (PS) Belio Kipsang declined to respond to calls and text messages sent by The Standard.

SCHOOL ADMISSIONS

Ndoro also said of the 66,497 admissions to extra county, private schools were allocated 16,000 representing another 22 per cent.

Private schools got 29,000 of the 128, 049 spaces in county schools.

The association said another 67,000 slots were allocates to private schools against declared vacancy of 434,048.

Hue and cry has marked this years Form One selection process as top performing candidates have been selected to join little known schools.

Parents and candidates have raised concern over the selection process citing sheer discrimination.

Kenya National Association of Parents National Chairman Nathan Barasa Wednesday said parents are unhappy with the selection process.

“Top candidates have missed out on prime slots as average candidates scoped better schools and this is not fair,” he said.

Kaimenyi said selection of candidates was based on merit, district quota, affirmative action and choice of candidates.

But private schools say affirmative action was not effected in the process. “Our analysis show that high-end schools in the various districts scooped most of the allocated slots,” said Ndoro.

He said for instance, Nyakach Sub County two schools scoped 45 of the 55 slots to national schools.

“Nyabondo Boys Boarding and Nyabondo Girls Boarding which are high end schools got 45 of the 55 slots to national schools. The remaining 120 schools shared the remaining 10 slots,” said Ndoro.

In Muranga East Sub County, he said Vithu Ramji and Muranga Technical Primary School took away 35 of the allocated 51 slots in the sub county.

“In Mwala Sub County, Makutano AIC Boarding School was allocated 32 slots of the 63 quota,” said Ndoro.

COURT ACTION

“This is why we are moving to court so that candidates from various districts (sub county) know what opportunities they have to national schools. This means that selection shall depend on clear figures and statistics known to all,” said Ndoro.

PS Kipsang said the ministry if facing a major challenge in placing candidates based on the emerging trend where a majority of candidates show interest on specific schools while ignoring the rest.

Most female candidates preferred Alliance Girls High school with some 156,347 candidates asking to be enrolled in the school.

The male candidates also preferred Alliance High School with a request number of some 154,417 applications.

 

Other preferred schools by candidates are Mangu High School, Limuru Girls, Loreto High and Nakuru High School closing the top six most preferred schools.

Private schools will admit 44, 078 students as Special Needs Education schools are allocated some 996 students.

Kaimenyi however, said that there are some 100,000 places available in youth polytechnics.

He said last year, youth polytechnics provided opportunities for 88,195 trainees that included 45,578 boys and 42,617 girls.

County schools selections kicked off January 26 and 27.