Despair, anxiety for bright pupils denied places in national schools

By LILLIAN ALUANGA-DELVAUX

Eldoret, Kenya: Starting this month, thousands of pupils will join Form One in secondary schools across the country. Among them is 14-year-old Pauline Senelwa, whose dream of joining Moi Girls High School, Eldoret, was almost dashed despite scoring 425 marks out of 500. Senelwa, who had scored As in all five subjects in the 2013 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations, was initially not among those selected to join a National school this year, sending her family into a panic.

Efforts by her father to secure a place for the former Booker Academy pupil landed her a slot in a school that was, according to her father, ‘not comparable to her performance’.

The situation, however, took a different turn last week when Senelwa was admitted to her first choice, Moi Girls High School, Eldoret.

GOOD RESULTS

“We picked the letter at the Ministry of Education and my daughter is now very happy,” says her father, University of Eldoret’s Prof Kingiri Senelwa.

The situation was however different for Omar Nude. His joy at his son’s good results turned to anxiety after the former pupil at a private school in Kirinyaga County, missed a slot in the country’s top schools despite scoring 419 marks.

 “Alliance High School, Nairobi School and Lenana School were among his choices, but he didn’t get any of them.When he finally got an admission letter it was to a school that was way below expectations,” says Nude.

The boy is now enrolled in a private school. In yet another case among many, a student, with 412 marks, also missed out on a national school, but was lucky to later gain admission to one in Western Kenya. A girl who scored 396 was also left out of the top schools and is now in a private secondary school in Nairobi’s Eastlands.

It took efforts of parents for candidates like Alex Nyaoro and Catherine Odhiambo, who scored 394 and 416 marks, respectively, to gain admission to good schools after they were handed a ‘raw deal’ in the selection. So just what is involved in selection to Form One? Is the quota system the solution for equal opportunity for pupils from public and private schools?

 According to the Ministry of Education’s revised guidelines for the 2014 Form One selection, the process is ‘aimed at ensuring placement of candidates in schools of their choice through merit, equity in school placement through quotas, and affirmative action where applicable.’

According to the guidelines, candidates that may have missed schools of their choice despite their marks have a chance at being placed in available places in schools of comparable performance levels. But such assurances have done little to placate those that see the selection criterion as ‘discriminatory’ towards private schools.

 “The quota system is unjustifiable and is not backed by policy. The ministry should ensure all schools have an enabling environment to provide quality education for all,” says Elimu Yetu National Co-ordinator Janet Ouko Muthoni.

SELECTION CRITERIA

National schools, she adds, only absorb about 16,000, while district schools admit over 400,000 pupils. Muthoni terms the selection criteria employed by the ministry a “lazy strategy by government to fix a problem that has long persisted in the education sector”.

In an earlier interview on the fate of pupils that had missed places in national schools despite qualifying, Mr. Kennedy Buhere, a communications official at the Ministry of Education, said no such  pupils would miss a secondary school.University of Nairobi lecturer and columnist with The Standard, Dr XN Iraki, argues that while the ministry’s defence that lack of a quota system would see all places in national schools taken by private schools is true, one wonders why all pupils sit the same exam if it is not supposed to equalise them. Kenya Private Schools Association Nairobi County chair  Julius Otundo says many students in private schools with over 400 marks had to seek  alternatives because they were left out of the country’s top schools.

“Many students from private primary schools did not get proper selections and even when they did, were admitted to the newly created national schools. ” he says. Otundo proposes that qualitative analysis  be done after exams that would consider aspects like  gender balance, and merit in selection.

“Government should find out what ails public schools because children in these schools can perform equally well.”

Private schools, he says, only got 25 per cent of slots in National Schools, a drop from the previous year’s 45 per cent.

“We need to look at what the Jubilee manifesto and Education Act say to avoid frustrating learners in private schools. We can also have private schools matched to national, County and district level schools then include them in the selection,” he says.

TANGIBLE SOLUTIONS

Kenya Primary Schools Head Teachers Association chair Joseph Karuga says  there is need to appreciate that for a long time, signals have been sent that public schools aren’t good enough.The selection argument, he says, should go beyond grades because there are other factors that differentiate public and private schools.

“Private schools are endowed with better facilities and therefore seen as able to produce better results,” he says.

Karuga is optimistic the taskforce set up by the ministry will come up with tangible solutions. He also proposes that a board similar to the one that conducts university admissions be formed to allocate Form One places.