•Kenya has 126 national schools that have a total of 33,009 slots
•In last year's examination, a total of 1,214,031 students sat the 2021 KCPE exams where 11,857 students scored 400 marks and above
Image: ENOS TECHE
The government has said not all top pupils in the KCPE exam will be placed in secondary schools of their choice.
Education CS George Magoha said Form 1 placement will be fairly done for national schools across the country.
Magoha said each region will be represented in all the national schools.
The CS, while in Mombasa, said that no one was going to interfere with the placement of students.
“National schools should be national, with students from each region represented. The top students from each region will be equally distributed to the national schools," said Magoha.
“I am going to take the map of Kenya and look at it and decide I want X number of students from each region to join school Y.”
The CS stated that they will use affirmative action to ensure that children from schools in arid and semi-arid areas are also included in the national schools selection.
"We have to ensure that there is affirmative action which takes into account geographical distribution of this country," Magoha said.
"We shall ensure that all Kenya children are given equal, fair and just treatment including those children in the slums, far flanked arid and semi arid area."
A total of 1,214,031 pupils sat the 2021 KCPE exams where 11,857 students scored 400 marks and above.
Another 315,275 scored between 300 to 399 marks while 578,197 scored between 200 t0 299 marks.
In the form one selection of 2020, the 126 national schools in the country had 33,009 slots.
Extra-county schools had 184,816 slots, county schools had 188,454 with sub-county schools having 669,145 slots.
Special needs education schools had a total of 777 slots.
The numbers are expected to be increased owing to the fact that the number of students who sat the exams in 2021 increased compared to 2020.
At the same time, Magoha refuted claims that there was any leakage in the just released KCPE results and the ongoing KCSE exams.
“There are people who might have attempted to tarnish the integrity of the exams, but let me assure you no exams leaked. Those who attempted to do so were caught and dealt with accordingly,” he said.
On the Competence Based Curriculum roll out, Magoha challenged the private school owners to construct junior secondary schools to complement government's efforts in implementing the programme.
“Private primary schools owners should not only focus on profit margins,"he said.
"Let them also invest in creating standalone junior secondary schools and help the government reduce the junior secondary school pressure.”
(Edited by Francis Wadegu)