Private schools have appealed to the government to ensure fairness in the Form One selection process that is set to begin next week, saying candidates should be placed in schools of their choice.
School heads from various institutions in Kiambu insist that the process should be guided by the performance of candidates as announced by Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu today.
Led by Kuta Amboko, Westridge School head, they regretted that learners and especially from private schools have been discriminated against in the past.
Kuta asserted that denying the pupils the opportunity to join secondary schools of their choice even after attaining the required marks will demoralize them and greatly affect their performance in secondary school.
“We are requesting the ministry to go as per the learners’ choice of their schools in a way that if a pupil selected Alliance High School and has merited by attaining the marks, then the slot should be given to that particular child,” Kuta said.
His sentiments were echoed by the school manager Rosemary Wanjiru, who said that all learners both from public and private institutions should be given equal opportunity.
“They are all our children and should be given an equal opportunity so that they can join the schools of choice given that they are merited by their performance,” Wanjiru said.
Juja Preparatory School head Francis Njenga reiterated that fairness and justice must be observed in the exercise.
“There are no private or public children. We are all served by one government and therefore we should not discriminate on the grounds of where the learners studied,” Njenga said.
Lucy Nyambura, a parent whose son Melvin Munene scored 403 marks at Westridge School, pleaded with the ministry to save parents the hustle of taking their kids to schools far from home by ensuring that they secure slots in the schools within the region.
“Most of us cannot afford to take our children to far-flung schools. We are pleading with the ministry to consider allocating our children slots in schools that are within the region,” she said.
Munene is looking forward to joining Murang’a Boys High School.
Kamau Njoroge
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