How form 1 placement process works
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
24 April 2022
The celebrations and
jubilations that accompany the release of the Kenya Certificate of
Primary Education (KCPE) examinations results are always followed after
two weeks by cries and claims of unfairness when the placement of pupils
in secondary schools is announced. The media is awash with examples of
“bright children who did not get admission to their preferred high
schools”.
I discussed this
matter in great detail in a series of three consecutive articles
published in these columns in 2015. One major change was done in the
selection system since that time: the national high schools were grouped
into four clusters and candidates are required to choose one from each
cluster.
Today, I will repeat
the explanation of how the placement is done – for the benefit of those
who missed the 2015 articles. Contrary to popular belief, KCPE marks are
NOT the most important factor in the placement process; they are the
last consideration!
The most important
factor is the pupil’s choices. If you do not choose, say, the Alliances,
you will not be placed there no matter how high your KCPE marks – even
if it is 495/500!
The second
consideration is the county of the school where the pupil sat the KCPE
exam. This is done in order to ensure that children from marginalised
regions of the country are not disadvantaged in admissions to national
schools.
Thus; all the pupils
who chose a certain school as their first choice are grouped according
to the KCPE counties. Then, in each county group, they are arranged in
order of KPCE marks. Next, the system picks one student at a time
starting from the top in each county until all the available spaces in
the school are filled up.
Those who are left
unassigned are kept on the side to wait for second choice assignment.
Looking at the published data of the ten most popular national schools,
it is easy to see how so many children miss their first choices. Nanyuki
High School topped the list with 156,003 applicants against its capacity
of only 480. This means that there are some 155,523 pupils who missed
this particular school alone!
In 2015, I suggested
several ways of improving the placement process but none has been
adopted so far. Now we have just two more KCPEs remaining – 2022 and
2023 – and so there may be no justification to rock the boat.
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