The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination results have finally been released by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i, ending the anxiety of the nearly one million candidates who have been waiting to know how they performed.
But expectedly, even before the results were released yesterday, controversy was already brewing over the manner in which vacancies in secondary schools will be shared out.
Following last year's concerns over the issue, the Government has revised the criteria for admitting students to Form One.
According to the new selection process, the top five candidates of either gender in each sub-county will be placed in a national school of their choice. This will be done irrespective of whether they are from private or public schools.
In addition, the ratio of public to private school candidates selected to extra-county schools will be 70:30.
But just like in last year's case, the Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) is up in arms and has rejected the new criteria, claiming that it segregates candidates based on the schools they went to.
KPSA Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndoro alleges the selection favours public schools. His beef is that students from private schools - they usually perform better than their public counterparts - fail to be admitted to secondary schools of their choice even after attaining the requisite marks.
On the other hand, the Government argues that there is nothing wrong with public secondary schools admitting the bulk of their students from public primary schools, their performance notwithstanding. The Government has previously advised private schools to set up more secondary schools to cater for their students.
Both sides have valid arguments. Students who perform well deserve the best. Students who don't perform as well because of adverse circumstances—and they are the majority—also deserve the best.
Developing a formula that will make the two sides happy is tricky but not impossible. It is a discussion that calls for sobriety. All should look objectively and at both sides of the coin.
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