Mombasa parents battle for Grade 7 slots in public schools

Teachers in public primary schools in Mombasa are now feeling the pressure of the children joining Junior Secondary School.

The intake for the Grade 7 students kicked off last week.

Some public institutions in the county have been forced to double their intake to accommodate more children.

Mombasa county has 97 public primary schools and over 400 private schools.

All public schools were allowed to offer JSS education, but only 166 out of the 400 private schools got the nod from Education ministry.

In Mombasa, a total of 12,592 pupils sat for the inaugural Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) examination in public primary schools while another lot of 22,000 sat for the exams in private schools last year.

County director of education Peter Magiri said despite the challenge in admission they are hopeful they will hit over 70 per cent intake by the end of this week.

 “Majority of students who did the KPSEA exams in private schools are now joining public schools. They have the liberty to either go to other private schools that are approved centres or join public schools,” said Magiri.

He pointed out that a school like Mbaraki Primary had 25 students who sat the KPSEA examination, but currently the number has doubled to 50 for those joining Grade 7.

He spoke after inspecting the ongoing admission process at Mbaraki Junior Secondary School.

He exuded confidence that all the 34,000 students who sat the exams in Mombasa will join JSS, even as he noted that some parents had decided to move to other counties.

“So far, I am satisfied with what we are doing. I hope we shall be over 70 per cent intake by the end of the week,” Magiri said.

About 1.6 million pupils who sat the inaugural KPSEA examination began reporting to school last week Monday.

In an earlier interview in January, Magiri said they were depending on the private schools to ensure the 100 per cent transition policy by the government is achieved.

However, he noted that this will not compromise on quality in approving private schools to offer JSS.

The government in mid-January embarked on assessing primary schools to be eligible to offer the junior secondary school.

The government was looking at the availability of physical facilities, including adequate classrooms, laboratories and playgrounds.

To cater for the talent pathway in the new Competency Based Curriculum, the government assessed if a school has room for expansion to have home science rooms, music rooms, and theatres rooms among others.

The Education ministry also considered the number of teachers and their qualifications in their school’s report for submission.

Iyale School Miritini is one of the private schools in Mombasa that sailed through the rigorous process.

School director Shete Msabaa admitted that the process was competitive, saying it was not an easy task to meet the requirements.

“As you can see, I am holding a stand-alone structure for JSS, we began construction works in April last year,” said Msabaa.

However, he stated that the major challenge so far was the issue of textbooks.

“The biggest challenge we can talk about is textbooks. Most of them are yet to be accessed because publishers are yet to put them on the market. We are hopeful that by the end of this month, we have them on the market.

“So far I can commend the ministry for a good job done,” Msabaa said.

The school, which enrolled 98 students for the KPSEA exams, has now admitted 120 as more continue to trickle in for Grade 7.

The ministry announced that Grade 7 pupils will undertake 12 subjects as they report to school.

Grade 7 teachers have expressed confidence that the pupils are ready to handle the subjects, despite transitioning from Grade 6 where they only learnt five.

“I have journeyed with these kids, and I believe they can handle the 12 subjects. The syllabus is not so much detailed, and it has been put in a way that is interesting and learners can grasp easily,” said a teacher at Iyale.

She added that it was not overwhelming for them as teachers had undergone CBC training through the Ministry of Education.