How KJSEA results will be a far cry from past exam celebrations

Kenya Primary School Education Assessment candidates celebrating after completion of tests at Nyamachaki Primary Schoo in Nyeri in November 2023. [Kibata Kihu, Standard] 

The 1,130,679 candidates who sat the first-ever Kenya Junior Secondary School Education Assessment (KJSEA) might never know their final marks in the test, ahead of the release of the results tomorrow. 

At the same time, schools will also not know how they rank nationally or within their counties, a shift from the long KCPE culture, where institutions used exam rankings to showcase academic dominance. 

These sweeping changes define the country’s first rollout of KJSEA results, coming 37 days after learners completed their assessment on November 3.

It will mark the first major assessment change under CBE since the end of the KCPE examination in 2023, as the Kenya National Examination Council moves to stop the competitive ranking culture that defined national examinations for decades.

Unlike KCPE, the KJSEA test, will not only be used to place students in senior school in January but also show the students academic and skill strengths. The students will be issued with two documents, a results slip and a learners exit report.

The result slip will give an overview on how they performed in each subject in the KJSEA assessment while the learner exit report that will give a wide review of the students’ academic and skill ability and recommendations.

But that’s not all, schools are also set to get a school report that will inform the general review of the Grade 9 learners.

The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) chief executive David Njengere, in a previous engagement with the media, said the school report will provide their strengths, weaknesses and where improvement needs to be made. 

The Standard has established that the overall score will only be shared exclusively with the Ministry of Education to guide placement into senior secondary schools. The elimination of school results will also mark a departure in the conduct of the national examination and could put an end to the heavy celebration culture that has defined the release of exam results for top performers.

This, educationists argue, could draw schools back to the drawing board as they have long used examination results as a marker of success and stamping academic authority and prowess.

Emmanuel Manyasa, education policymaker and executive director of Usawa agenda argues that the changes could hit hard on private schools that have capitalised the celebration to attract enrollment.

“The celebration have long defined top performing schools and this has been their way to attract enrollment as they sell their institutions as centres of excellence to attract more enrollment.

“Now with the shift, and if there will be no ranks at all, they have to change strategy. Maybe they will boast on the students that will join top senior schools,” Manyasa told The Standard.

At the same time, candidates will not receive certificates once the results are released. Instead, they will be issued result slips indicating their performance in each subject without an overall grade.

However, concerns remain about equitable distribution of resources. Some rural schools fear they may lose learners because they lack specialised facilities like science labs, studios, or sports complexes. In response, the ministry has pledged continued investment. “

The government is committed to ensuring that no region is left behind,” the Ministry official noted. “We are rolling out a five-year modernisation programme targeting infrastructure for all pathways.”

Parents have welcomed the system but are seeking clarity on career prospects linked to various pathways.

Nairobi parent Maurine Achieng said the counselling component will be crucial. “Our children are talented differently. My hope is that teachers guide them well so that the choices they make now don’t limit them later,” she said.

Wycliffe Lung’aho, a headteacher at Homunoywa Primary School, Vihiga said teachers play a pivotal role in the placement process, especially in assessment and career guidance.

“We have been trained to support learners in identifying strengths and recommending suitable pathways. This demands close engagement with both the child and the parents,” he said.

The new system uses performance bands designed to guide learners into the most suitable senior secondary pathways.

This marks a sharp contrast to the former KCPE examination system, where candidates were examined in five subjects, each graded out of 100 marks, culminating in a total of 500 marks. 

Under KCPE, learners were ranked based on their aggregate scores, and national competition heavily centred around the final mark. 

Learners were tested in five subjects of Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, Science, and Social Studies and religious studies, each marked out of 100, leading to a total possible score of 500 marks. 

Those raw marks have now been collapsed under the KJSEA, eliminating the 500-mark race and shifting the focus from ranking to competency. Learners will now be placed into four main performance groups. The top performers, scoring between 75 per cent and 100 per cent, fall under Exceeding Expectations (EE). 

Within this group, those scoring 90–100 per cent get 8 points, while those with 75–89 per cent get 7 points.

Students who meet the expected level score between 41percent and 74 percent. This is the Meeting Expectations (ME) category, where 58–74 per cent earns 6 points and 41–57 per cent earns 5 points.

Those who are close to meeting the expectations fall in the Approaching Expectations (AE) band, scoring 21–40 per cent. Learners with 31–40 per cent receive 4 points, while 21–30 per cent receive 3 points.