The country’s examination body, the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) has urged schools to access Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) and Kenya Pre-vocation Level Education Assessment (KPLEA) sample papers in its portal to help in preparing learners appropriately even has it reveals how the first-ever national summative assessment will be structured.
KJSEA will be a national summative assessment which will be done by learners who follow the age-based curriculum that’s the regular leaners while KPLEA will be national summative assessment for Special Needs learners who follow the Stage Based Curriculum under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).
Under CBC, KJSEA will determine interests and abilities for the pathways at the Senior School (Grades 10 – 12), while KPLEA will be used to establish the learner’s interests, abilities, talents and readiness to transition to the Vocational Level, from their current Pre-Vocational Level.
At the same time, KNEC has released an outline of how the KJSEA will be structured, revealing that the summative assessment which will be conducted in October/November this year will have a total of 12 papers which will also have new codes.
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The papers are: English (901), Kiswahili (902), Mathematics (903), Kenya Sign Language (904), Integrated Science (905), Agriculture (906), Social Studies (907), Christian Religious Education (908), Islamic Religious Education (909), Hindu Religious Education (910), Creative Arts and Sports (911), and Pre-Technical Studies (912).
These papers will take a format of written assessment, short structured questions, essay questions, Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs), performance tasks, and practical assessments.
In the recently concluded County Dialogue Forums initiated by the Ministry of Education which came amid transition from Junior Schools to Senior School, KNEC also revealed how Grade 9 learners will be graded.
According to the recommendations by the Presidential Working party on Education Reforms (PWPER), Grade 9 assessment was to comprise of 20 per cent Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA), 20 per cent School Based Assessment (SBAs) Grades 7 and 8, and 60 per cent summative evaluation at grade 9.
This necessitated KNEC to now expand the 4 –point assessment rubric of Exceeding Expectation (EE), Meeting Expectation (ME), Approaching Expectation (AE), and Below Expectation (BE) to 8 Achievement Levels (AL), which will now be used to grade the learners at Grade 9.
The 8 ALs and their respective raw marks are: AL 8 (90-99) with 8 points and AL 7 (75 -89) for 7 points for EE, AL 6 (58 -74) with total points of 6 and AL 5 (41 – 57) with total points of 5 for ME, AL 4 (31 – 40) with total points of 4 and AL 3 (21 – 30) with 3 points for AE, and AL 2 (11 – 20) and AL 1 (1 – 10) with total points of 2 and 1 respectively for BE.
Timetable
This latest revelation comes after the examination body released the timetable for both KJSEA and KPLEA, the national summative assessment, that are expected to start officially in late October, 2025.
According to KJSEA timetable for Grade 9 regular learners and who follow the age-based curriculum under CBC, Creative Arts and Sports Project (Paper Code 911/1) which is supposed to take 3 months will be done between May, 2025 to July, 2025, while Pre-Technical Studies Project (Paper Code 912/2) will take one month and will be held in July 2025.
The assessment which will take 8 days will begin on October 27, 2025 after rehearsal on October 24, 2025 and is expected to end on November 5, 2025. The Papers in this assessment will take duration of between 1 hour 30 minutes on the minimum and above 2 hours on the maximum.
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English Language (Paper Code 901/1) and English (Composition & Literary Analysis) whose Paper Code is 901/2 will be done on the first day which will be October 27, 2025, which will be followed by Mathematics (Paper Code 903) and Agriculture and Nutrition (Practical Planning session) whose Paper Code is 906/2 on the second day which will be October 28, 2025.
This will be followed by Kiswahili Lugha (Paper Code 902/1)/Kenya Sign Language (Paper Code 904/1) and Kiswahili (Insha na Utangulizi wa Fasihi)-Paper Code 902/2 or KSL (Paper Code 904/2) on the third day, which will be on October 29, 2025; with Integrated Science (Paper Code 905/1) and Pre-Technical Studies (Paper Code 912/1) following on the fourth day, which will be on October 30, 2025.
The fifth day of the assessment which will be on October 31, 2025 will see the learners doing Integrated Science (Practical), which is Paper Code 905/2, thereafter they will sit for Agriculture and Nutrition (Paper Code 906/1) and Creative Arts and Sports (Paper Code 911/2) on the sixth day, November 3, 2025.
Social Studies (907) and Religious Education Papers that is Christian (908), Islamic (909), and Hindu (910) Religious Education will be done on the seventh day, November 4, 2025, and ending on November 5, 2025 which will be the final day with Agriculture and Nutrition (Practical), Paper Code 906/2.
Special Needs Learners
For learners with special needs, that is those learners with severe cerebral palsy, autism, deaf-blind and multiple disabilities who follow the Stage Based Pathway under the CBC and who are at Pre-vocational Level ready to transit to the Vocational Level, their KPLEA summative assessment shall constitute five (5) assessment papers, with each paper being assessed through performance-based tasks.
They are assessment tasks, scoring guides for each assessment task; tool for assessing a Core Competency or a Value, scoring guide for the core competency or the value assessed, Individual Learner’s Report Sheet, and School Summary Assessment Score Sheet.
The learners will have their Pre-Vocational Skills Paper 5: Integrated Learning Assessment (ILA) for one month in July 2025, and unlike the regular learners who follow the Age Based pathway under CBC, this category of learners will do their papers for a whole day though the rehearsal will be done on the same day.
They will start with Pre-Vocational Skills Paper 1: Picture Making, Paper Craft, Pattern Making, Garment Making, Communication and Functional Literacy Skills on October 27, 2025 which will be followed by Pre-Vocational Skills Paper 2: Woodwork, Sculpture, Jewelry and Ornament Making, Physical Education, Music and Movement on October 28, 2025.
Pre-Vocational Skills Paper 3: Concrete Work, Leather Craft, Hair Dressing and Beauty Therapy, and Social Studies will be done on October 29, 2025, and complete with Pre-Vocational Skills Paper 4: Home Care, Farming Skills, Weaving, Daily Living Skills and Nutrition, and Religious Education on October 30, 2025.
By Roy Hezron
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