Call for fairness in Form One selection as Education CS Amina launches exercise

**Education CS Amina Mohamed, who is expected to launch Form One selection on December 3, 2018.** [Photo, File]

An education expert has called for fairness in the allocation of form one slots.

Talking to KTN on Monday morning Education expert Jonathan Wesaya was concerned that most parents take their children to private schools but want them allocated slots in top government schools.

"A student who scored 360 in Turkana should be given priority over one who scored 409 in a private school in Nairobi," Wesaya said.

He added that schools in rural and marginalised areas offer little to make the candidates competitive, citing lack of laboratory equipment when sitting Chemistry and Biology papers.

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Wesaya's comments come in the wake of private school owners calling the secondary school slot allocation discriminatory because preference is given to public schools when it comes to form one selection.

President Uhuru Kenyatta promised 100 per cent transition for all primary school pupils eyeing secondary school. In the 2018 KCPE more than 2,000 candidates scored less than 100 marks.

But CS Mohamed said regional balance and merit would guide allocations to national schools. County and extra-county schools allocation is set for Wednesday.

A team of experts from the Ministry of Education met in November to review Form One selection guidelines that will be used in this year's admissions to secondary schools.

The team led by Director of Secondary Education Paul Kibet analysed the available capacities of each school ahead of the placement.

The team also calculated the capacity and candidature of each subcounty, which will be useful during the selection and placement of students to national schools.

Data from the Ministry shows that there are 29,712 slots in all the 103 national schools.

Another 123,400 spaces are available in the 531 extra-county schools and 142,358 slots in the 1,031 county schools.?