Form One selection rules released

By Augustine Oduor

Kenya: The Government has released Form One selection guidelines to be used for candidates who sat last year’s Kenya certificate of Primary Education examination.

The revised guidelines indicate that candidates from both public and private schools will be treated equally, putting to rest growing anxiety that candidates from academies would be discriminated against.

Education PS Bellio Kipsang said even though the formula to be used is not different from the one applied last year, candidates from both public and private schools will get slots they deserve.

The statement comes just a day after private schools raised a red flag over the selection criteria. “We will ensure all candidates who did well get places in the schools they deserve,” said the PS.

He said candidates who will miss places under the revised placement formula will benefit from affirmative action.

Uphold merit

“Candidates who may not be picked to schools of choice despite their marks will be placed in the available slots in schools of comparable levels of performance or category,” reads the document dubbed ‘Guidelines for form one selection 2014.’

The document says selection will be done based on merit, equity and choice of schools made by the candidates.

Candidates choose four national schools during KCPE registration. Selection to these schools will start on January 14. The top four candidates from every county, male and female, will get places in national schools of their choice.

The guidelines also give a lifeline to candidates who sat KCPE in the past two years, as they will also be considered.

“Cases of candidates who sat KCPE in the last two years and wish to rejoin the system will be considered during replacement based on merit,” read the guidelines in part.

The document says selection process shall be done at four levels — national, extra county, county or special schools and district.

It says admission to national schools will be 100 per cent national catchment.

Every district will get slots in national schools through a quota system that will be arrived at by getting the district candidature multiplied by the available Form One vacancies in schools. This will then be divided by the national KCPE candidature to get the district quota.

“When a district misses a slot due to low candidature, affirmative action will be applied,” reads the report.

And two separate formula, based on the district quota, will be used to determine the number of candidates from both public and private academies to be placed in national schools.

Kenya Private Schools Association (Kepsa) yesterday said they are not opposed to the formula as long as it does not discriminate against candidates from private schools.

“All we want is merit and equity so that bright candidates from private academies are not punished for doing well in examinations,” said Peter Ndoro, Kepsa chief executive officer.

He said last year, some 7,000 places were allocated to private schools and noted that they expect more slots this year as the schools’ performance improved.

Private schools scooped all the top ten slots.

The document says there are 105 national schools. Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi said the additional 27 schools elevated to national schools will admit candidates next year.

Extra-County and County schools will select candidates after the national schools selection is completed. Tentative timetable from the ministry indicate that selection to these schools will commence on January 20.

Extra-county schools are high preforming schools with a mean score of 5.6 in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.

The guidelines say these schools will admit 40 per cent of the candidates nationally. The next 40 per cent will be selected from within the county and another 20 per cent from the district hosting the school.

County schools are former provincial boarding secondary schools and they will select candidates from within the county on the basis of KCPE candidature in each district within the county.