The Form One selection exercise began on Thursday and from all accounts, the number of pupils who got placements in secondary schools has increased significantly.
The Ministry of Education puts this transition rate at 82 per cent and indicates that after 925,744 candidates sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations, 759,603 will get admission to Form One.
Furthermore, 7,056 students from both public and national schools will join national schools after scoring 400 marks or higher. And since the number of national schools was raised from 18 in 2012 to 103 in 2016, more students will be admitted to these top schools. Their admission capacity expanded from 4, 175 to 23, 085, marking a huge step in expanding education opportunities.
However, for some 166,141 candidates, this is most likely the end of learning after missing places for admission in secondary school. The Government should expand secondary schools and build more classrooms to make basic education accessible to all Kenyan children. At the age when the majority of pupils leave primary school, they are still too young join the job market or obtain vocational training.
The majority of them will be in their early teenage years and will need careful guidance before they transition to adulthood.
Access to basic education is a constitutional right the Government must always strive to provide. It is not okay when even one child is left to his or her own devices after sitting KCPE. These children are not ready for the job market and neither are the girls ready for marriage.
To better prepare our youths for the life ahead, the Ministry of Education should constantly seek ways of improving the quality of instruction and learning in our schools. Teachers should be motivated and encouraged to shape the young impressionable minds, and not frustrated to a level that they resort to frequent strikes.
Even as the students prepare to take up their placements in secondary schools, it should be noted that a review of the school curriculum is long overdue where learning should respond to emerging dynamics and trends.
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