The Ministry of Education will from Wednesday start tracking down more than 150,000 pupils who sat their Kenya Certificate Primary Education (KCPE) examination last year but are yet to report to secondary schools.
A status report by the ministry indicates that out of 1,033,901 that sat the examination last year, 873,692 have reported, representing an 85 per cent transition rate.
The report further indicates that Murang’a County has the highest number of students who have reported to secondary schools, at 97 per cent.
ADMISSION
A total of 32,556 students were expected to report to the secondary schools countrywide under the government’s 100 per cent transition policy, but 31,420 took up their slots, which means that three per cent are still out of school.
Tana River County has the lowest enrolment, at 59 per cent. Only 2,205 students have reported against a target of 3,721.
Siaya County has a 95 per cent turnout (24,857 of the 26,071 expected), while Kirinyaga has 95 per cent (14,196 of 14,929 expected). Kisumu County had expected 27,227 students and it’s 25,561 that have reported, making 94 per cent. Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed is expected to lead the campaign as the government seeks to ensure that all learners have access to basic education. The Form One selection started on November 19 and ended December 2.
Reporting dates for all Form One students were scheduled for between January 7 and January 11, but it was later extended to January 18. The ministry also did away with a second selection to prevent reporting delays.
Instead, parents were asked to place requests at their preferred schools where the principals were to capture the details on the NEMIS platform for approval by the ministry.
This was to allow the ministry to monitor the enrolment and as of February 1, it received and approved 194,000 requests.
Ms Mohamed said the use of NEMIS facilitated the acquisition of real-time data on status of admission. Accessing admission letters through NEMIS facilitated prompt reporting and admission and increased access in remote counties such as Tana River.
BIRTH CERTIFICATES
She added that doing away with the physical second selection had saved time and resources.
“This process reinforced efficiency of admissions, promotion of fairness and openness and the online provision of admission letters prevented cartels from ‘peddling’ admission letters,” said Ms Mohamed.
However, the ministry faced several challenges, among them, constant change of data, and the lack of birth certificates hindering learners’ details from being uploaded on the NEMIS platform.
Others were slow internet connectivity in some counties slowing down the uploading of the info as far-flung areas reported challenges in down time and slow connection. The CS said the ministry has expanded the internet bandwidth to accommodate increased traffic on the site. There were also technological challenges such as a negative attitude towards internet use.
It was also established that a few principals were updating data from cyber cafés, compromising the authenticity and accuracy of the information. “It is estimated that about five per cent may have sought to re-take the KCPE exam. This will be verified when registration data from the Knec is harmonised,” said the CS.