New dawn: 'First-born' class of CBE transitions to senior school

Kakamega Hill School, Junior school assessment candidates being frisked before entering examination room on October 27, 2025. [Benjamin Sakwa/ Standard]

The journey of Competency Based Education (CBE) began in 2017 and the initial transition from junior to senior schools is on the horizon, with the pioneer class expected to report on January 12, 2026.

Following an assessment, the education stakeholders say it has moved away from previous high stake and competitive process to a more holistic approach that values practical skills, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving as well as continuous learning and growth.

With the release of  2025 Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) yesterday for the first CBE class of over 1.13 million learners, the race to senior schools now begins, with placement expected to have been completed by December 20.

All learners will be placed in appropriate three pathways namely Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (STEM), Creative Arts and Sports Science as well as Social Sciences, with the Ministry saying there will be 100 per cent transition, given that there are also about 1.5 million declared slots.

Education Cabinet Secretary, Julius Ogamba said that from inception of Competency-Based Assessment (CBA), reporting of learners’ performance uses performance levels of exceeding expectation, meeting expectation, approaching expectation, and Below Expectation.

“The metric on grading at KJSEA has taken a similar approach with each level being further divided into two, hence an 8-point scale. The reporting of performance at KJSEA has been done from point 1 to 8, where point 8 is the best at Exceeding Expectation 1 and point 1 is the least at Below Expectation 2.

He explained that learners will be placed to Senior Schools based on their performance and selected pathway.

In line with recommendation by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform (PWPER), the assessment of learners at Grade 9 comprise 20 per cent from Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA), 20 per cent from School Based Assessment (SBA) in Grades 7 and 8 and 60 per cent Summative Evaluation at Grade 9, which is KJSEA.

Being the first placement of its kind, the CS explained that the KJSEA portal will stay open to allow parents and learners ask questions on the challenges they may encounter.

“Any learner who feels they have been placed in the wrong pathway and wish to transfer or change, that space is available for the next two weeks and even after they join in January we will be able to keep the portal open to ensure every question is addressed and every learner has been taken care of to their best interest and satisfaction,” he explained.

Unlike the previous system, the CS said the learners will get a report that shows learning areas, where strengths and weaknesses are, a process that has been going on from assessment throughout.

When they sat the KPSEA, Ogamba said the comprehensive report that was given to assist the learners to build on their strengths as they move and helping them achieve the best in areas they are studying.

“We are placing them to schools and pathways, we will work based on the report that we have done and see what support we can give to learners. This is a learner based assessment,” the CS explained.

According to the CS, clustering of subjects enables learners to move to specific pathways, since it has been a build-up of assessments and with that, it is possible to determine where the strength of a learners lies and are able to take their competences and interests are.

“The difference between this system and all the others is this – because we have been doing the assessment of the learner and navigating through what they have been doing, you cannot, for example, find a child who was doing very well in Mathematics, now ending up doing badly or where they have not been doing well all of a sudden you find this is an A student,” the CS said.

He also explained: “It helps to ensure that you are progressing in your area and that is why we have no issues of cheating because it is easy to determine where the competences are. you are able to say someone did not just come out and become all of a sudden, an A student and they have not been, your schooling adds value to the end result.”

Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr David Njengere explained that in the CBE, the learner is moving to senior school to specialize in an area and does not need aggregated scores but only knowing their strengths in subjects to pursue.

“If we use our understanding of 8-4-4 to explain CBE, we will have a challenge. In 8-4-4 when the child was leaving Class Eight and therefore sat Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and were moving to Form One, all learners were studying the same subjects, which means all you needed was a total score out of 500 marks and then place a learner to a national school which required at least 400 marks or an extra county school which required 350 and so forth,”

He said learners have sat the KPSEA in Grade Six, assessed in Grades 7, 8 and 9 so there would be no reason for the question of repeating arising.

“I do not know the reason why a student would want to repeat when clearly, there has been a track and a processes of accumulating the ability of that learner. Since the spirit of these reforms is to nurture every learner’s potential, everyone has an opportunity in senior school to specialize in areas they are good at. I do not think it would be fair to keep the learner again in Grade 9, yet they had already demonstrated their abilities over a long period of time,” Njengere explained.

With Education Principal Secretary, Prof Julius Bitok adding: “All 1.13 million learners have been given an opportunity, starting from May this year, to select 12 schools of choice. Selection has already been done.”

He said the next thing will be placement to schools they selected and to be able to do this, the Ministry has adopted the formula on revenue allocation to be able to distribute as fairly as possible, students across all counties in the four categories of schools.

Bitok said the formula takes care of the population, size, poverty and such other components so that a learner from Northern Kenya can be able to get an opportunity same as another across the country to join a school in any part.

By next week, all the learners will have known the schools they have been placed.