By Roy Hezron
The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) will now have to work under a tight time frame of three years from 2023 to2025, to put up mechanisms on how the current Grade 7 learners in Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) will be assessed and their transition to Senior Secondary Schools (SSSs) in early 2026.
According to the Ministry of Education’s Guidelines for Implementation of Junior Secondary Education released by the State Department for Basic Education in January 2023, KNEC has between July to September to come up with an Assessment Framework for JSS; which will be used to guide the assessment of JSS learners.
The pioneer Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) class now in Grade 7 will sit for the first Grade 9 national assessment referred to as Kenya Junior Secondary Education Assessment (KJSEA), which will be a summative assessment that will be administered by KNEC after three years.
On the other hand, learners with special needs who are following the Stage Based Curriculum, their assessment will be referred to as Kenya Pre-Vocational Level Education Assessment (KPLEA).
However, KNEC and Subject Panels has from July to September of every year starting 2023 to 2025 to ensure that it comes up with a School Based Assessment (SBA) tool for JSS, that will guide the teachers on how they will administer the assessment termly and score the learners continuously for the next three years.
KNEC develops and uploads the tools for this assessment on the Council’s website. The teachers then download the tools from the website and administer them to the learners.
Further, KNEC in conjunction with Schools, Sub-County Directors of Education (SCDEs) and Teachers Service Commission’s (TSC) Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) are supposed to ensure that they come up with guidelines for administration, assessment tools and timetables; that will be used to administer SBA for Grades 7 and 8 between July to December this year 2023.
The guidelines will help KNEC to carry out analysis of SBA and report writing in ensuring that Assessment outcomes from the SBA are in place between April to July of every year from 2023 to 2024.
Thereafter, the group is also tasked to ensure that assessments tools regulations for administration of summative evaluation which will be used for summative assessment for Grade 9 is in place between January to July, 2025.
If the timelines will be followed to the latter then, the current Grade 7 leaners who will be sitting for their final JSS examinations (assessments) in November 2025; will be having their Certificates in early 2026 since as per the timelines, KNEC has until January 2026 to issue Certificates to candidates after processing of Summative Evaluation results for KJSEA.
At JSS, learners will be assessed in all the 12 core subjects and one or two optional subjects as stipulated in the Curriculum Designs; while learners at the Pre- Vocational level will be assessed in 9 subjects.
The 12 core subjects are English, Kiswahili or Kenya Sign Language (KSL), Mathematics, Integrated Science (Biology, Chemistry and Physics), Health Education, Pre-Technical and Pre-Career Education, Social Studies (Citizenship, Geography and History), Religious Education where learners choose one of the following CRE, IRE or HRE; Business Studies, Agriculture, Life Skills, and Sports and Physical Education.
The optional subjects are Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Home Science, Computer Science, Foreign Languages that is German, French and Mandarin, Arabic, Kenyan Sign Language, and Indigenous Language.
Subjects for Assessment at Pre-Vocational Level for special needs leaners are Communication, Social and Literacy Skills; Daily Living Skills, Mathematics Activities, Music and Movement; Religious Education that is Christian ,Hindu and Islamic Religious Education; Physical and Health Education; Hygiene, Nutrition and Safety; Environmental Activities, and Social Studies.
