The Ministry of Education is set to move away from the old Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) grading system, where learners were graded across subject clusters.

Basic Education PS Belio Kipsang on Monday said the new grading system will grade learners in general and include the best five subjects written by the students.

He said the changes will allow learners to pursue courses of their interest without being limited by their grades. The PS observed that the 8-4-4 system has denied many students the opportunity to develop critical skills as it majorly focuses on rote learning.

“A student with the ability and interest in medicine or engineering need not be prevented from qualifying for the courses just because a subject that was used to grade him pulled down his overall mean grade,” he said.

Kipsang was speaking in Mombasa during a briefing on the status of the implementation of the recommendations of the presidential working party on education reforms (PWPER) to the members of the Departmental Committee on Education of the National Assembly.

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He said that grading in any national education system should be for certification and not for placement of learners to higher learning institutions.

“The integration of certification and placement in the KCSE grading structure has disadvantaged many students with different orientations in abilities and interests,” Kipsang said.

Kipsang said moving forward, students will be evaluated based on literacy and numeracy abilities.

Students who are presently under the 8-4-4 system will, however, be graded according to their performance in five subjects in addition to their grades in Mathematics and either English or Kiswahili.