The Ministry of Education, (MoE) has clearly outlined how 1.2 million learners shall be placed in the senior schools as from January next year.
The process will begin in two weeks’ time with the selection, by each learner, of 12 schools for their chosen career pathways a success.
Senior school selection will run from May 26 to June 15, while placement will be done after the results of the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) are released. The test will be administered for the first time in November.
According to Dr William Sugut, the head of the secondary directorate at the Ministry of Education, a learner’s interest, teacher’s input and academic performance will be critical aspects in the placement. Parents will also be involved in guiding their children.
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The pathway choices available to learners in senior school are: arts and sports, social sciences; and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The pathways then branch off into tracks — specific learning areas.
The current national schools will offer all the three pathways due to their capacity and superior infrastructure while other schools will offer Stem and either of the other two pathways.
“The placement results will show where learners have been placed, then their admission letters, as has been the practice, will be accessed online using the learner’s assessment number”, said Dr Sugut
“We are now done with the registration for assessment, what is remaining is the selection of pathways, tracks and schools for purposes of ensuring that we tap into the talent of the learners,” he added.
In terms of step-by-step procedure, the teacher who is guiding the selection will log into the school’s National Education Management Information System account, then the names and the assessment number of grade 9 learners in that institution will pop up,” explained Dr Sugut.
The teacher will take the learners through the selection process, update and save their details, which include their home country and sub-county, for transparency, the teacher will need to confirm those present during the selection process, the parent, the learner and the head of the institution should also be present during the process to guide the child.
The learner will then be guided to select the pathway of interest, and then subsequently select the track of interest in that same pathway.
Dr Sugut added that the learner will thereafter proceed to select the first subject combination before being guided to select four senior schools. These include: a day school, a boarding school and their home county, and two others (boarding) from outside their home county.
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He further said the same process will be repeated for the second and third subject combinations of the learner.
After that, the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Extension Course Council (KNEC) will work on the rest of the logistics for placement purposes.
During the national conversation on Competency-Based Education (CBE), Dr Sugut explained that the ministry had separated the registration for the KJSEA from the selection of pathways and tracks adding that various ministry officials, led by Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba, will have important roles in its process.
In junior school, the learners pursued nine learning areas while in senior school they will undertake seven subjects, four of which will be compulsory, including mathematics.
“Given that the first cohort of CBE learners are in Grade 9, we need to firm up their transition to senior school,” he explained.
The learners’ academic performance in KJSEA will be cumulative, having undertaken assessments in Grade 6, Grade 7 and Grade 8, and the summative assessment at the end of Grade 9.
To ensure equity, the ministry will place the top six learners per gender in each Stem track per sub-county in boarding schools of their choice. It will then place the top three learners per gender in each social science track, same to arts and sports.
Schools with vacancies will declare and those that wish to make any changes are expected to do so two weeks before the reporting date.
The Ministry of Education is expected to issue the new categorization of schools according to pathways available in each of them. The schools are currently categorized as national, extra-county, county or sub-county.
By Cornelius korir.
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