No guarantee all top KCPE candidates get into national schools

Education CS George Magoha with a form four student sealing the last physics KCSE paper with them is Sister Mary Wachira during the end of the exams season at Precious Blood Girls, Riruta, Nairobi on April 1, 2022. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

Candidates who scored 400 marks and above in the 2021 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination will not be guaranteed of Form One spaces in national schools, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said yesterday.

Prof Magoha said there will be a review of placement criteria that will also consider candidates from marginalised regions in the scramble for the available 30,000 slots in national schools.

He also announced that marking of Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination has started under tight security and will be complete within two weeks. 

This means that 800,000-odd candidates who sat for KCSE may receive their results before the end of the month. ‘’I am not the one who is placing the children, they are being placed using a formula which will be fair to everybody and the process will be complete within the next two weeks,’’ said  Magoha.

‘’If a child is from Samburu and got 370 marks, we will take that child to a top school and that is what national schools are meant to be. To bring cohesiveness and ensure that we continue to be one nation.’’

Magoha said any school that such a child will be placed in will have teachers registered by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and who are well trained.

‘’I do not want a situation where everyone goes to Alliance High School. Even those who got 200 marks want to go to Alliance. So if you want everyone or 5,000 children to to go there, I don’t have time for that,’’ Magoha said.

He assured parents that the process will be fair to all.

The CS was speaking at Precious School Riruta in Nairobi when he oversaw the writing of final KCSE test paper. He said some of the good results that will come out soon may not come from schools like Alliance but even day schools.

Magoha denied that there was leakage of KCSE examination before and during the writing of the tests. “I have shown media more than eight security features that no one can interfere with before test papers are given to anyone to take to schools,” he said.

“All the materials were therefore safely delivered to all containers with exact examination features as they were packed and there was no breach of examination packages in any part of the country.”

He said 300 phones were confiscated from teachers, candidates and school staff.