End of an era: No more Form One admissions as reforms start

Educatio PS Belio Kipsang during a media briefing at the Coast Regional Commissioner's office in Mombasa on January 2, 2025, where he said 85 per cent of junior secondary schools have received Grade 9 textbooks. [Robert Menza, Standard] 

Starting from the 2025 academic year, secondary schools will no longer have Form One admissions, marking a departure from the norm of the past four decades.

Nearly a million candidates who sat the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) were placed in Form One at various categories of secondary schools – National, Extra County, County and Sub-County - which they joined in mid-January 2024.

This placement marked the end of an era in several fronts. These students were the  last 8-4-4 cohort  to sit the KCPE exam and transition to secondary school,  and will also be the last to sit the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 2027.