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1 in 3 Primary School graduates will not attend High School in Kenya this year

Quarter-million students to miss Form One places

Published on Friday January 8th 2010

By Sam Otieno

Thousands of pupils to miss Form One as boys take the bulk of available places

Almost a quarter-million students who sat last year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations will not join secondary school this year.

Specifically, a total of 241,121 pupils out of the 727,054 candidates who sat the examinations will miss Form One places in public and private secondary schools. The Minister for Education Sam Ongeri terms this a major challenge to the country’s education system, promising that the Government is looking into the matter urgently. “This remains a major challenge to all of us, thus we must continue to support each other and in particular, the expansion of secondary schools with less than three streams to ensure that they increase the number of streams to accommodate more [students],” said Prof Ongeri.

Education Minister Prof Sam Ongeri (centre) is escorted to the Kenya Institute of Education boardroom by (from left to right) the Institute’s Director Mrs Lydia Nzomo, Assistant Minister for Education Mr Calist Mwatela, Permanent Secretary Prof Karega Mutahi and the Chairman of the Education Parliamentary Commitee Mr David Koech where he launched the selection of this year’s Form One process Friday

He said the Government might consider learning in shifts, electronic-learning (e-learning) and even distance learning as ways of addressing Form One vacancy shortfalls.

The few prestigious national schools will only admit 3,296 students out of whom 1,866 will be boys and 1,430 girls.

Provincial secondary schools will accommodate 129,287 pupils comprising 69,517 boys and 60,130 girls. District schools will accommodate the bulk of the students, as they will open their doors to 301, 682 comprising 149, 986 boys and 151, 696 girls.

Private schools on the other hand will admit 51,308 students, 23,179 of them boys and 28,129 girls.

The candidates are expected to report to school between February 1 and February 5.

While launching the selection exercise yesterday, Ongeri said the quota system of admission was utilised instead of the normal cut-off point system that favoured candidates with top marks only.

This year, students were not only picked based on their performance but also based on the districts where they come from in a bid to give the national schools a national face.

National Schools

This means that each district is represented in national schools. For instance, the best student from a marginalised area, even with 200 marks, will be guaranteed a place in a national school. In the past, a cut-off point was placed to determine those who join national, provincial and district secondary schools. The minister asked secondary principals not to reject students with low marks, arguing they are capable of improving given the difficult conditions in which they sat the examinations.

“The old system of admission could have locked out students from North Eastern and Coast if it were to be used this year,” said Ongeri.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Education Mr David Koech said it is worrying that between 80 to 90 per cent of pupils admitted to public secondary schools come from private primary schools. “We must correct this anomaly and correct it now,” he said.

He claimed the Ministry of Education had failed to address staffing issues, a factor contributing to poor performance in public primary schools.

“I wish you [Ongeri] could announce here that the Sh1.7 billion frozen be sent to TSC for it to employ teachers quickly,” he told the minister. The funds had not been disbursed due to legal issues. They were apparently needed last September to hire more teachers.

The chairman of the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association Cleophas Tirop said the Ministry should check the dwindling standards in public primary schools since the trend may soon spread to public secondary schools.

FPE Millions

Ongeri launched the exercise amidst vociferous calls from stakeholders that top ministry officials step aside for thorough investigations into missing billions meant for free primary education (FPE).

Latest documents show that although the Government disbursed Sh47.4 billion between 2003 and 2007 under the FPE, billions of shillings remain missing or unaccounted for.

The Secretary General of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Lawrence Majali said the minister and the PS should step aside and pave way for investigations.

Koech promised his committee will sweep clean the Ministry of Education and restore its image. “Our position as a committee is clear that all those giving the ministry a bad name should step aside,” said Koech.

But Ongeri again defended himself against the accusations, saying he was not in charge when the scandal took place. “I was not even an MP, so you now want to come and load it up on me, it is not fair. Do not ask me anything about 2003 to 2007,” said Ongeri.

Article from The Standard | Online Edition

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 4:46 pm and is filed under News in Kenya. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.