Top KCPE students earn national schools slots

Teachers and parents locate school teams from the board during the launch of National Form One selection 2016 yesterday. [PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO/STANDARD]

Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) candidates who scored 400 marks and above have all been selected to join national schools.

A total of 7,056 KCPE students from public and private primary schools will join the prestigious schools and are expected to report to the institutions between February 3 and 10.

However, national schools have a total of 23,085 slots, meaning that most students who will join these institutions will have below 400 marks.

The number of national schools were increased from 18 in 2012 to 103 in 2016 with their admission capacity expanding to 23,085 up from 4,175.

Last year, 756,283 KCPE candidates wrote their examinations in public schools constituting 85.1 per cent, while 131,975 (14.9 per cent) sat their examinations in private schools.

While launching the Form One selection yesterday, Education CS Fred Matiang'i said selection of students will be guided by the constitutional principles of equity and fairness.

The selection process is based on clearly defined parameters that include merit, candidates' choice of schools and district quota computed on the basis of each sub-county's candidature strength.

Special Needs Education schools will admit 1,424 students, extra-county schools 63,990, county schools 123,435 while sub-county schools will take the largest share of 481, 318.

However, some 166,141 candidates will not get vacancies in secondary schools.

The county and sub-county schools selection will be conducted on February 25 and 26.