New Class One admission regulations take effect

In line with new guidelines, no written paper interviews for Standard One pupils were administered yesterday as schools opened for the first term.

Many school heads appeared to adhere to the recently released guidelines on admission of Standard One pupils that scrapped academic tests for appraisal sessions.

In the Kenya School Readiness Assessment Tool guidebook developed by the Ministry of Education in partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund, social interaction, discipline levels and basic arithmetic are some of the provisions that have replaced academic interviews.

This has made admission regulations uniform across the board, doing away with different methods that schools used to enrol pupils. These constituted written interviews and evaluation of past performance from nursery schools, which are usually charged. Moi Avenue headmistress Eunice Mlati confirmed that no written interview was administered for the pupils being enrolled.

"For us, a child has to be at least six years old. We do also interact with the child to determine the competence levels," she said.

Ms Mlati however noted that recently, pupils join Standard One when they are competent enough hence easy for the teachers to start teaching them from what they already know.

According to Section 34(4) of the Basic Education Act, no public school is to administer any test related to admission of a child to a public school unless such a test is for purposes of placing the child at an appropriate level of education.

Despite heavy rain in Nairobi more than three hundred pupils reported to Olympic primary school in Kibera on Monday January 4 for class one as schools reopen for first term. Benard Omondi waiting to be admitted by Mrs Agatha Mutiso teacher (in black) as his mother goes through the books. (PHOTO: WAWERU MURAGE/ STANDARD)

On releasing the guidelines, Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i insisted that it is an all year evaluation process and not another form of academic test.

Scrapping of the academic tests seems to have led to an increase in the number of admissions.

A visit to Olympic Primary School in Kibera revealed the number of Class One pupils was 400, with many still being expected to enrol.

"Last year, we had 368 pupils; this year we are overwhelmed but cannot turn away parents. We have had to add one more stream to the four we already have," said the school admission coordinator Agatha Mutiso.

To comply with the new admission guidelines, Ms Mutiso said a customised syllabus approach has been crafted to be used on all of the pupils in order to have them start at the same level.