Scramble for top schools as Senior School placement begins Monday

Top performers and teachers at Mogotio Little Friends Junior School on , celebrate their strong showing in the KJSEA examinations. The school once again distinguished itself in Baringo County, with many learners  getting  exceeding expectations.[Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

The first-ever placement of learners to senior secondary schools starts on Monday, setting off anxiety over intense competition for national schools and a history of discontent witnessed during previous placement cycles such as KCPE.

The over 1.13 million candidates will now compete for places in senior schools even as the Ministry of Education declared it has over 2.2 million admission places available in Senior School.

This is the first transition under the Competency Based Education (CBE) whose results were released on Thursday.

Learners received a new-format result slip that merges subject performance with pathway qualification scores, opening the race for prestigious national and top-ranked extra-county schools. 

This will now guide their placement, first to one of the three pathways either STEM, Social Sciences, or Arts and Sports, which subsequently will inform the senior secondary school that they will join.

The Ministry of Education guidelines released in October this year revealed that the cream of the crop in the assessment will automatically secure a place in their school of choice.

The top candidates in the Grade 9 test in each sub-county will be placed in the national schools currently categorised as C1 schools.

Similarly, the guidelines dictate that the top two learners per gender in each STEM track per sub-county will be placed in boarding schools of their choice.

The top learner per gender in each Social Sciences and Arts and Sports Science track per sub-county will also secure placement in a boarding school of their choice.Learners achieving EE1 and EE2 in each subject will qualify for placement in boarding schools of their choice.

But that’s not all. On Thursday, Basic Education Principal Secretary (PS) Julius Bitok revealed that the Ministry will apply the County Revenue Allocation (CRA) formula to guide the distribution of slots across counties.

The formula gives different weight to five parameters in distribution of resources to the county.

These are population (42 per cent), equal share (22 per cent), poverty (14 per cent), income distance (13 per cent) and geographical size (9 per cent).

“That formula takes care of population, size, poverty and such other components so that we are as fair as possible. A child from northern Kenya can access an opportunity the same way as a child from western, to join a school in Nairobi or any other part of the country,” Bitok said.

If the CRA model is applied strictly, counties with high candidate numbers such as Nairobi (71,022), Kakamega (59,384) and Nakuru (54,028) stand to benefit the most based on population. However, across the country concern is building up over how the government will distribute students to schools with unequal resources, intense competition for top ranked schools, and possible placement to schools students did not choose.

With National Schools now categorised as C1 schools still holding the strongest appeal for families, a cutthroat competition to get admission is anticipated even as the ministry insists there will be no ranking.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba on Thursday stated that schools have enough capacity following the exit of this year’s KCSE candidates.

“The total capacity of the 9,540 senior schools is 2.2 million learners. A total of 996,000 learners  exited secondary school after the KCSE this year. Senior schools will, therefore, have an extra classroom left by the fact that we only have three classes at this level,” Ogamba said.

Despite Ogamba’s reassurance, the placement process faces its biggest test yet after students shunned more than 5,000 senior secondary schools during the selection in second term.

Parents interviewed by the Standard have now raised fears of students being placed in schools they did not select bringing back one of the major discontentment witnessed in the Form One selection under the outgoing 8-4-4 system.

They expressed concern that despite abolishing ranking, national schools still enjoy better resources such as modern labs, better boarding facilities and more teachers giving them a strong advantage over other categories.

Silas Obuhatsa, the National Parents Association (NPA) chairperson, warned that forcing placements into schools that students deliberately avoided will only heighten mistrust in the system. He has asked the Ministry of Education to harmonise placement decisions with parental expectations, arguing that transparency must guide every stage of the transition to senior school.

“We need a placement process that respects the choices families made. Anything less will undermine confidence in this new system,” Obuhatsa said. Similarly, Ezra Ombiro, the Nairobi Parents Association chairman added that parents want assurance that the reforms will not reproduce the inequities and frustrations of the previous system. 

“The ministry must prioritise early communication, strengthen school capacity and ensure fair placement so that the first cohort under the new structure is not disadvantaged,” Ombiro told the Standard. 

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