Speech by CS Machogu on Form 1 placement, Junior high, Fees, KPSEA

Ladies and Gentlemen, I welcome you all to the release of the Form One Placement results for candidates who sat the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) Examination. 

During this event, I will also make a few announcements regarding the reports of the 2022 Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and the transition to the Junior Secondary School level.

I, wish to, therefore, address the following pertinent issues regarding the basic education sub-sector in our country:

Government’s 100 per cent transition policy

The Government is committed to ensure that every learner progresses from primary to secondary school. To address barriers to secondary education, the Ministry will continue working with the Ministry of Interior and National Administration to facilitate the enrollment of every child in secondary school. National administrative arms will work with county and sub-county education officials to ensure that no child is locked out of secondary education owing to factors removed from their ability to access education.

Accordingly, all Ministry officials will be expected to file accurate daily returns on the status of reporting to schools to ensure 100% transition is achieved. 

Kenya Primary School Education Assessment

As I promised during the release of the KCPE Examination results, the results of Kenya Primary School Education Assessment were to be released this month. I am happy to announce that the exercise of marking has now been completed and that schools will be able to access the KPSEA reports through the Kenya National Examinations Council portal from tomorrow, Tuesday, 17^th January 2023. 

A total of 1,253,577 learners sat the 2022 KPSEA in 32,555 centres across the country. I wish to announce that all these learners will transit to Junior Secondary School. 

Given that this is the first time such reports will be available for schools, I direct the Kenya National Examinations Council to collaborate with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development and Teachers Service Commission to assist the schools to properly interpret the reports for learners and parents.

I also direct the Council to hold joint discussions with the KICD and TSC on the national KPSEA reports with a view to providing feedback on the CBC curriculum that can inform ongoing curriculum reviews.

Junior Secondary School

At the Junior Secondary School level, all the necessary arrangements have been put in place to ensure that all learners join Grade 7. These include:

1. His Excellency President William Ruto has directed that the National Treasury set aside Ksh15,000 per learner as capitation to facilitate free learning in all public schools. In total, the

2. Government will spend Ksh9.6 Billion for the learners in Junior Secondary School this calendar year. It therefore means that no school should charge any fees for Grade 7 learners unless such schools have boarding wings. 

3. Prohibition of public schools from charging any admission fee for any Grade Seven learner due to the 100 per cent transition policy in the same school where the learners were enrolled in Grade Six.

4. The Teachers Service Commission is recruiting 30,000 new teachers, the majority of whom will be attending to learners in the Junior Secondary School level. 

5. Although learners will join Grade Seven in the schools where they were enrolled in Grade Six, there is need to distinguish the Junior Secondary School section. As a result, a decision has been made that parents and Boards of Management agree on the new uniforms for Junior Secondary School learners.

6. Schools are expected to have elaborate admission processes in place for Junior Secondary School learners through NEMIS. An admission register must be in place with proper induction and orientation programme.

The Ministry of Education is awaiting the recommendations of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms regarding the curriculum for the CBC to inform any needed changes in the content of all levels of learning. As a result, we will be issuing more guidelines on the Junior Secondary Education level from time to time.

Monitoring of Form One Reporting through NEMIS

The Ministry will use the NEMIS platform for efficient and effective management and monitoring of learners in the school system. In this regard, principals will be required to file accurate daily returns on the status of reporting to schools. To mitigate against weak network coverage, the Ministry has developed an innovative offline admission application for principals which can be accessed through mobile phones. 

On the same note, Principals are directed not to admit students on NEMIS before they physically report to the school. In addition, parents/guardians are encouraged to facilitate smooth admission of all learners to secondary schools by submission of the requisite documents for NEMIS registration.  

Affirmative action for transition and retention of needy students. 

The Ministry has been offering support to the needy students through

Elimu scholarship. Previously these efforts were further complemented  by other scholarships from our partners from various organizations. In this regard, I wish to appreciate these scholarships and bursary providers such as Equity Bank, KCB, Co-Operative Bank, NG-CDF, and the County Government who supported the achievement of 100% transition. We request them to continue supporting us in this endeavor.

I take this opportunity to thank well-wishers and philanthropists who have supported at least a student in covering costs of other non-tuition related expenses such as school uniforms and personal effects for the needy children. 

The Ministry shall also strengthen the School feeding and sanitary towels provision programmes to enhance retention.  Notable also is the EDU-Afya Medical cover for all students registered in NEMIS in public secondary schools. 

School Fees

The Ministry has issued fees guidelines for the boarding students to which schools should adhere to. I wish to state that Public Secondary School fees for the 2023 academic calendar year will not be changed and will remain at Ksh53,554 while that of County and Extra-County Schools will remain at Ksh40,555.  On its part the Government will maintain its capitation per student in all Public Secondary Schools at Ksh22,244.  Parents whose children are enrolled in Public day

Secondary Schools should not be charged any fees because the

Government is catering for all the tuition costs amounting to Ksh22,244.  Parents should report incidents of any students turned away for not paying higher fees and other levies to the nearest education office for action. I also wish to challenge parents and guardians to take their obligations seriously by ensuring prompt payment of school fees in boarding schools. 

School infrastructure and resources

Given that about 70% of the secondary students are day scholars is a clear indication that more support should be directed in developing these schools. I therefore encourage all boarding schools to introduce day wings to enhance access and cut down cost of education. This is also in line with CBC requirements for parental engagement in delivery of the curriculum.

Policy development and implementation

The Ministry in conjunction with other stakeholders has developed policy guidelines to enhance the smooth management of education. It has been noted with concern that cases of non-compliance with some of these policies negatively affect transition, retention and quality of  education. School Boards of Management should acquaint themselves with the existing policies and ensure implementation and compliance. Accordingly, there should be no cases of illegal exclusion, arbitrary suspension and forced transfers of learners in public schools.

Automation of Ministerial service delivery

I wish to bring to your attention the emphasis of the H.E. the President that all the government business delivery mechanisms be automated. In this regard, the Ministry is committed to automating activities relating to service delivery to its clients. Sources of any information will therefore be migrated into NEMIS. Schools are called upon to ensure proper enlisting of students in NEMIS for Capitation, KCPE and KCSE registrations, and monitoring of students’ affairs including fees payment, disciplinary procedures and class attendance. It will also be mandatory for schools to enlist all their BOM members and nonteaching staff in the platforms that shall be available in NEMIS. 

Assessment of Junior Secondary Schools

The learners joining Grade Seven shall report to their respective Junior Secondary Schools on 30^th January 2023.

The Ministry is currently carrying out a comprehensive countrywide assessment of all public and private schools to determine their readiness to admit learners to Junior Secondary School. The exercise, which began on 9^th January, 2023 is set to end on 20^th January, 2023. 

The assessment considers, among other factors, whether the respective school has adequate land to host the Junior Secondary School level; availability of buildings to be used as classrooms and laboratories; and whether the school has adequate water and power supply. 

As of Friday 13^th, January 2023, a total of 14,589 public and private schools had been assessed. Of these, 13,221 schools had been approved to host the Junior Secondary Schools. I direct our multisectoral teams to work round the clock to ensure they complete the assessment exercise by the 20^th January, 2023 deadline. 

FOCUS ON KCPE 2022 PLACEMENT

Form One Selection and placement exercise was undertaken to ensure smooth transition from primary to secondary schooling for the 2022 KCPE Examination candidates. This process has been carried out in a way that ensured fairness in the placement of KCPE Examination candidates of 2022. The placement was based on choice, merit and availability of places.

The 2022 KCPE Examination candidates constitute the sixth and second last cohort of learners under the 8-4-4 system to be admitted to secondary schools under the Government’s policy of 100% transition.  

The Ministry is committed to ensure that parents/guardians with learners joining Form One are not overburdened with unnecessary requirements. Principals should exercise caution while listing the requirements so that the cost of education is reduced as much as possible. Principals should ensure that no student is sent away from school over illegal levies. 

Let me now focus on the placement of 2022 KCPE candidates.  The Ministry has placed all eligible candidates appropriately in secondary schools in keeping with the 100% transition policy. This selection  process was strictly guided by the principles of merit, choice, equity and availability of space in placing candidates. This was conducted as follows:

S.NO	CATEGORY	FEMALE	MALE	TOTAL
1	County	107,461	91,566	199,027
2	Extra County	111,105	117,055	228,160
3	National	18,794	20,178	38,972
4	SNE	871	948	1,819
5	Sub County	372,459	387,203	762,610
	Total	610,690	616,950	1,230,588

In the placement, all candidates who scored 400 marks and above were placed in National or Extra County schools of their choice. The Special Needs Education candidates were also placed in the regular schools of their preference, while others were placed in special schools based on their disability categories on merit and choice.

Affirmative Action in Slums

The Ministry has applied affirmative action to achieve equity for children from the slum areas. In this year’s selection, 270 students from slum areas were placed in national and extra-county schools of their choice. This is in addition to those placed through merit and other criteria.  This intervention is inline with the government policy to achieve parity in education by considering the needy and vulnerable children in informal settlements in urban areas.  

Placement of Refugees

For the first time, the Ministry placed 9,019 learners from primary schools located in the refugee camps in public secondary schools.  This is in line with the 2017 Djibouti declaration on Regional Refugee

Education that stipulates the need to enhance capacity of IGAD member states to implement commitments to quality education and learning for refugees and host communities. 

Counties with limited capacities

The following Counties had inadequate capacities according to their candidature as indicated in the table. 

S.N O	COUNTY	NO. OF SCHOO LS	CAPACI TY	KCPE CANDIDATU RE	DEFICIT
1	Nairobi	109	27,145	72,232	45,087
2	Kilifi	164	31,258	41,470	10,212
3	Mombasa	56	12,801	22,360	9,559
4	Kajiado	95	20,640	25,605	4,965
5	Turkana	63	12,096	16,796	4,700
6	Garissa	41	7,273	9,908	2,635
7	Kwale	104	22,633	24,442	1,809
8	Taita Taveta	54	6,768	8,477	1,709
9	Kitui	449	41,184	42,262	1,078
10	Narok	171	33,360	34,262	902
11	Tana River	38	5,232	6,035	803
12	Baringo	176	18,144	18,757	613
13	West Pokot	185	16,178	16,687	509
14	Lamu	27	3,264	3,760	496

To mitigate the shortfall, candidates were placed in other counties with sufficient capacities.  

The above scenario can be considered an eye-opener to an underlying problem that calls for serious early redress in the wake of CBC. It is against this background that I will take a personal initiative to consult with leadership from these areas to address this perennial deficit in capacity

KCPE Candidates’ School Choices

During the selection, it became clear that a large number of candidates did not receive proper guidance and direction when choosing schools. This resulted in some schools attracting far many applicants against their capacities.  These schools included:

S/N o	SCHOOL NAME	SECLECTED BY	SCHOOL CAPACITY
1	KABIANGA HIGH SCHOOL	153,074	768
2	NANYUKI HIGH SCHOOL	148,827	576
3	NYANDARUA HIGH SCHOOL	137,511	240
4	PANGANI GIRLS	119,265	384
5	MASENO SCHOOL	105,504	720
6	ALLIANCE GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL	104,763	384
7	NAKURU HIGH SCHOOL	103,909	336
8	KAPSABET BOYS	99,542	384
9	MANGU HIGH SCHOOL	98,146	480
10	BUTERE GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL	95,550	768

The results of the above means many candidates will not get their choices and have to accept that it is not possible to be placed in your “dream” school. I wish to call upon head teachers and parents to ensure candidates make wise choices through proper advice.

In addition, it was noted that 33,984 students from 2,673 schools did not select any school. To this end, I direct county directors of education to establish the concerned schools with a view of instituting administrative actions against the headteachers and/or schools management for failing to adequately register learners for examinations.

Reporting Dates

The reporting period for all 2023 Form One students will be from 6^th February 2023 to 13^th February 2023. In case of any queries, parents are advised to visit their respective County Directors of Education for assistance. I am directing that all admitted students should be captured on NEMIS by 2nd March, 2023. All the CDEs are required to ensure compliance with this requirement. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, As I conclude my remarks, I wish to announce that this year’s Form One selection was fully computerized from National to Sub-County levels. Candidates, parents or guardians can now access joining instructions that are available online for all categories of schools  through the Ministry’s website www.education.go.ke. For any queries, you are asked to check on Frequently Asked Questions under form one selection. Assistance may be obtained by writing an email to placement@education.go.ke.

The results can also be checked by texting the candidate’s index number to 22263. Schools will access and download their selection lists by logging onto the NEMIS platform. Parents are asked to take their learners to the schools they have been placed in. Those who may not be satisfied, may approach desired schools for assistance.

 I now wish to declare the 2023 Form One selection, placement and admission results for the 2022 KCPE Examination candidates officially released.

Thank you and God bless you