BY felix Wanderi
As the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) candidates continue to celebrate commendable performance in the 2020 examinations, attention now shifts to selection of the students to join form one next month.
In Kiambu County, teachers and parents have urged the Ministry of Education to ensure fairness in the exercise to ensure candidates are placed in their preferred schools of choice.
According to Tumaini Spire Junior headteacher Ann Njoki, the education ministry should ensure a thorough selection process and ensure that students’ choices were put into consideration.
Njoki said that most of the candidates have struggled through thick and odd of register outstanding performance and that failing to admit them to their preferred secondary school would lower their education morale.
Parents led by Jane Njeri whose daughter (Ivy Mwilu) managed to score 404 marks at Tumaini school urged the government to expedite fairness in the process to ensure students, most of whom maintained their interest of joining national school, are accorded justice.
The school head whose institution registered a mean score of 360 marks with a candidature of 75 students also implored the government to support private institutions to recoup from a paralyzed learning precipitated by Covid-19 pandemic forcing some schools to shut down permanently.
Njoki expressed concerns that most institutions have resorted to taking loans to pay staff salaries and meet other operational costs calling on the government to intervene to help them access low-interest loans.
Last year, the government had promised to provide a Sh7 billion stimulus package to help institutions of learning navigate challenges posed by the pandemic but this never came to pass and the jury is still out as to what happened to the kitty.
While releasing the results, education Cabinet Secretary Professor George Magoha said this year’s Form One selection would start on May 28.
Magoha insisted that the 1,187,517 candidates who sat the 2020 exams will transition to secondary schools and asserted that placement will be done based on merit.
The candidates who will be joining Form One this year form the fourth cohort to be admitted to secondary schools under the 100 percent transition policy.
Magoha said there were enough Form One places to allow all who did the examinations to join secondary school.
