Five Days, Done by Friday: KJSEA Invigilators Get the Relief They Asked For
Compressed 2026 timetable ends the assessment on Friday, unlike last year’s Monday spillover
On the day candidates and centre managers across the country run through this year’s rehearsal, many teachers have another reason to feel relieved.
The Kenya National Examinations Council has compressed the 2026 Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) into five working days.
The last paper will be written on Friday, 30 October 2026, and the exercise will not run into the following week the way it did in 2025.
Today, Friday, 23 October 2026, is rehearsal day. Real papers begin on Monday, 26 October, with English.
The Monday that nobody wanted
Last year’s KJSEA ran for six days. The 2025 timetable started on Monday, 27 October, and carried through the week.
After Integrated Science Paper 2 and Creative Arts and Sports Paper 2 on Friday, 31 October, the assessment resumed on Monday, 3 November.
That day’s papers were Social Studies and the three religious education papers: Christian, Islamic and Hindu.
For a candidate, a single extra Monday is a minor detail. For the teachers who supervise and invigilate, it was a bigger problem. Many are deployed to centres far from their homes and families.
Teachers raised this last year, saying the extra day made planning difficult.
Those who had expected to travel after the Friday papers found themselves still tied to their centres over the weekend, waiting out a single final day of exams.
A Friday finish means a teacher who wants to go home can do so. A teacher who has to cover a long distance can start the journey once the last scripts are packed, rather than waiting through the weekend for a Monday session.
How the timetable was squeezed
A side-by-side reading of the 2025 and 2026 timetables shows how KNEC fitted six days of papers into five.
Day 1 is unchanged. On Monday, English Language (901/1) runs from 8.30 am to 10.10 am, and English Composition and Literary Analysis (901/2) follows after the break from 11.10 am to 12.55 pm. The timings for the Hearing Impaired and Braille versions are also the same as last year.
Days 2 and 3 have traded places. In 2025, Mathematics and Agriculture (906/1) were on Tuesday, and the language papers were on Wednesday. This year the order is reversed. Kiswahili Lugha (902/1), Kiswahili Insha na Utangulizi wa Fasihi (902/2) and Kenyan Sign Language (904/1 and 904/2) are on Tuesday, 27 October. Mathematics (903) and Agriculture (906/1) move to Wednesday, 28 October. The paper durations and morning session times are the same as last year. Only the days have been swapped.
Day 4, Thursday, is much heavier. In 2025, Thursday had two papers: Integrated Science 905/1 in the morning and Pre-Technical Studies 912/1 after the break. In 2026, Thursday, 29 October, carries three. Integrated Science 905/1 still starts at 8.30 am. Social Studies (907), which was on the Monday after the Friday finish last year, now follows from 11.10 am to 12.40 pm. After a 50-minute break, Creative Arts and Sports (911/2) is written from 2.00 pm to 3.40 pm.
Day 5, Friday, absorbs the rest. Last year, Friday had Integrated Science 905/2 and Creative Arts and Sports 911/2. This year, Friday, 30 October, opens with Pre-Technical Studies (912/1) at 8.30 am, which was a Thursday paper in 2025. After the break, Christian, Islamic and Hindu Religious Education (908, 909 and 910) are written together from 11.10 am to 12.40 pm. These were also Monday papers last year. After another 50-minute break, Integrated Science 905/2 closes the assessment from 2.00 pm to 3.00 pm.
What moved where
Put plainly, three subject groups changed days:
Social Studies (907) moved from the sixth day, Monday, 3 November 2025, to Thursday, 29 October 2026.
The religious education papers (908, 909, 910) moved from Monday, 3 November 2025, to Friday, 30 October 2026.
Pre-Technical Studies (912/1) moved from Thursday to Friday, and Creative Arts and Sports (911/2) moved from Friday to Thursday. They have swapped places.
Integrated Science 905/2 stayed on Friday but moved from the morning to the afternoon. Its duration has also changed. It was a 1 hour 30 minute paper last year, running 8.30 am to 10.00 am.
In 2026 it is a one-hour paper from 2.00 pm to 3.00 pm. The Braille version drops from two hours to 1 hour 30 minutes.
The long break between sessions is new too. The break was 30 minutes in the 2025 timetable. On Thursday and Friday this year, there is a 50-minute break from 1.10 pm to 2.00 pm before the afternoon papers.
The trade-off: longer days at the end of the week
The compression is not free. Squeezing six days into five means Thursday and Friday carry heavier loads, including afternoon sessions that did not exist in last year’s timetable.
On Thursday, 29 October, invigilators will be on duty until 3.40 pm for the standard Creative Arts and Sports paper. For the Braille version of that paper, the session runs until 4.10 pm.
On Friday, the standard Integrated Science 905/2 finishes at 3.00 pm, and the Braille version at 3.30 pm. Those hours are later than anything in last year’s timetable, which finished its longest day at about 1.40 pm.
For teachers, then, the picture is a trade of a few extra hours on two days against an entire extra working day, which would have fallen on a Monday.
Many will likely see that as a fair exchange, especially those travelling long distances. After the final scripts are counted, packed and sealed on Friday afternoon, the longer day may be a small price for starting the journey home immediately.
Centre managers will have their own adjustments to make. Thursday and Friday now have three sessions each, with more transitions to manage.
Script control forms, return envelopes and cover pages must be handled correctly across all three. KNEC’s instructions remain firm on this.
Script control forms and seating plans must not be stamped by the centre manager, every return polybag must carry a script control form, and scripts must be evenly distributed across the envelopes provided for each paper.
The 2026 instructions also add a point that was not in the 2025 version, saying absentee candidates must be marked “AB” in red against their assessment number on the script control form and on the return cover page.
Rules that haven’t changed
Several rules carry over from last year. All first-session papers start at 8.30 am. No extra time is allowed. Candidates must be seated 15 minutes before the paper starts, and they must avail themselves for searching outside the assessment room.
Cell phones and electronic communication devices are prohibited in assessment centres, and a candidate found with one will have their results cancelled.
A candidate who commits an irregularity in any paper has the results for the whole subject cancelled. Widespread irregularities at a centre can lead to the cancellation of results for the whole centre.
One supervision rule is unchanged. One supervisor is deployed for every 200 candidates, and each assessment room of up to 20 candidates must have an invigilator.
A practical word for those on duty
For teachers heading to their centres this weekend, the key dates are simple. Rehearsal is today. The first paper is on Monday morning.
The last paper is on Friday, 30 October, with the final session ending at 3.00 pm for most candidates, or 3.30 pm where Braille papers are involved. After that, the work is done.
Teachers who raised their concerns last year about long distances and an unexpected extra Monday now have a timetable that responds to them.
The heavier Thursday and Friday will be demanding, but the finish line is firmly set for the end of the working week. For many invigilators, that is the relief they were hoping for.
