100,000 learners apply to change senior school placements on day one of revisions

Over 100,000 Grade 10 learners and their parents applied to have their senior school placements changed in the first day of the review window.

Out of these applications, the Ministry of Education says that it approved 2,000 transfers for the Grade 10s.

“So far, more than 100,000 Grade 10 learners have applied. This is about 10 percent of the expected applications,” said Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok.

This came as parents complained that the system designed to receive applications kept on crashing, something that was acknowledged by PS Bitok. “We experienced a slight downtime in the morning due to bandwidth, but overall it is performing well,” he said.

According to Bitok, responsibilities have been delegated across levels, with Cluster One approvals being handled at the Ministry of Education headquarters. Cluster Two approvals are being handled by the regional directors while Cluster three are the responsibility of county directors. Cluster four approvals are being handled by sub-county directors.

When doing the revision, learners are allowed to list their preferred school of choice plus three additional options they would prefer if they don’t get their top revised choice.

For example, a learner who was initially placed at Nyandarua High School may choose to transfer to Mang’u High School by listing Mang’u High School as their first choice, then listing an additional three options such as Alliance High School, Nyeri High School, and Nanyuki High School.

SEE MORE: Kenya should scrap CBE education system and go back to 8-4-4 system

According to the Ministry of Education, the review is being guided by an automated system that will match preferences to learners’ performance and the availability of slots in schools.

The Ministry says that learners will be able to submit their revised choices, which will include switching from STEM to Social Sciences as long as they meet the requirements for the switch and the new schools of choice have open spaces.

The new choices will be submitted through their junior schools. The system will generate schools that are available for selection out of which the learners will pick from.

For the KJSEA exams, 600,000 chose the STEM pathway, 437,000 chose Social Science while 124,000 chose Arts & Sports. The results of the KJSEA comprised of an aggregate of 20 percent from the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) which is done at Grade Six, 20 percent from the school-based assessments (SBA) which is done in Grade Seven and Grade Eight, and 60 percent from the Grade Nine KJSEA assessment.