Massive Relief for Teachers as KNEC Pushes SBA Portal Deadline to October 29
School heads, ICT coordinators, and subject teachers across Kenya can finally breathe a collective sigh of relief. The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has officially extended the deadline for uploading the 2026 School Based Assessment (SBA) scores from the initial date of Friday, 23rd October 2026, to Thursday, 29th October 2026.
The original deadline of October 23 aligned directly with the third-term official school closing date issued by the Ministry of Education.
However, behind the scenes, the extension became an absolute necessity due to persistent, widespread technical hitches on the KNEC Competency Based Assessment (CBA) portal—a reality that created intense frustration in staffrooms across the nation as servers stalled, logins failed, and online forms froze mid-upload.
The Real Trigger: Prolonged Technical Hitches vs. Portal Traffic
While official communication points to operational adjustments, school administrators and ICT personnel across the country confirm that the true driver behind the extension was the virtual breakdown of the CBA portal https://cba.knec.ac.ke.
For several consecutive days leading up to the initial deadline, school data entry clerks reported that the portal was frequently unresponsive, inaccessible, or completely down:
Server Overloads: Teachers attempting to submit mark sheets were greeted by endless loading screens, “504 Gateway Timeout” errors, or sudden database disconnections.
Lost Progress: In dozens of instances, teachers who spent hours keying in scores for entire classes saw their entries wiped out mid-session when the server crashed before changes could be saved.
Authentication Lockouts: The One-Time Password (OTP) login mechanism—designed to let individual subject teachers upload marks—became a massive technical bottleneck. The system repeatedly logged teachers out, forcing them to request new OTPs that often failed to deliver via SMS due to gateway congestion.
KNEC’s Defense: System Traffic vs. “Last-Minute Rush”
Despite mounting complaints from school heads, KNEC has maintained a defensive stance regarding portal downtime.
The examination council has repeatedly attributed the server slowdowns to a “last-minute rush” by schools, arguing that many institutions delayed score entry until the final days of the term despite assessment tools being accessible since late September.
According to KNEC, thousands of schools logging on simultaneously creates severe traffic spikes that strain server infrastructure.
School administrators, however, push back against this narrative, emphasizing that teachers cannot upload marks for tests that are actively being sat, marked, and moderated during the final weeks of the term.
A Compounding Crisis: Closing Day and National Rehearsals
The portal failures could not have come at a worse time for school management teams:
Closed Schools: Secondary schools had already closed earlier in the week, and the majority of primary schools officially shut their doors on Wednesday, 21st October 2026. Conducting emergency uploads after learners have departed created severe logistical hurdles for staff remaining on site.
National Examination Rehearsals: Friday, 23rd October, was also the designated national rehearsal day for candidates sitting the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA). School heads found themselves caught between preparing examination centers, hosting supervisors, and frantically refreshing a frozen portal to meet the SBA cutoff.
The extension to Thursday, 29th October, provides much-needed breathing room to untangle this administrative nightmare, allowing IT teams to upload scores during off-peak hours when portal traffic cools down.
Scope of the 2026 SBA Upload Cycle
The guidelines governing this cycle—outlined in circular KNEC/GEN/TD/SE/SBA/GUI/2026/03 signed by KNEC Chief Executive Officer David Njengere—cover continuous assessment scores that carry permanent weight in learners’ academic profiles.
| Education Level | Grades Assessed | Exempted Grades | Key Subject Focus Areas |
| Early Years & Foundation | Grade 3 & Stage-Based Foundation | None | • KEYA (Grade 3): Mathematics Activities & English Activities. • KFLEA (Special Needs): Activities of Daily Living, Communication, Social & Pre-Literacy Skills. |
| Middle School | Grades 4 & 5 | Grade 6 (Exempted for KPSEA) | Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, Kenyan Sign Language, Agriculture, Science & Technology, Social Studies, Religious Education (CRE/IRE/HRE), and Creative Arts. |
| Junior School | Grades 7 & 8 | Grade 9 (Exempted for KJSEA) | Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, Kenyan Sign Language, Social Studies, Religious Education, Integrated Science, Agriculture, Creative Arts & Sports, and Pre-Technical Studies. |
Technical Workarounds & Guidance for Schools
To navigate the remaining window successfully and mitigate the ongoing portal instability, school technical officers are advised to follow key procedural measures:
1. Use Off-Peak Hours: To bypass portal congestion caused by nationwide traffic, log in early in the morning (before 7:00 AM) or late in the evening.
2. Tick “Remember Me”: To reduce repeated session timeouts and decrease reliance on headteachers for fresh OTPs, ensure the “Remember Me” checkbox is enabled during login.
3. Upload in Small Batches: Avoid trying to submit full grade levels in single long sessions. Upload subject by subject or stream by stream so data saves incrementally.
4. Preserve Physical Evidence: KNEC rules dictate that all marked scripts, scoring grids, and physical evidence must be retained for at least six months post-upload for audit and verification purposes.
5. Protect Test Confidentiality: KNEC has strictly reiterated that assessment materials must not be distributed across social media or public forums, warning that security breaches could jeopardize institution ratings.
Looking Ahead
While the extension to Thursday, 29th October, offers immediate relief, it highlights the urgent need for long-term server capacity upgrades on the CBA portal.
As the Competency Based Curriculum matures and higher cohorts enter continuous assessment cycles, reliable digital infrastructure will be vital to prevent yearly operational gridlocks between school administrators and examination authorities.
