Government’s 100 percent transition policy
The Government is committed to ensuring that every learner progresses
from primary to secondary school. To address barriers to secondary
education, the Ministry will continue working with the Ministry of
Interior and Coordination of National Government to facilitate the
enrollment of every child in secondary school. National administrative
arms will work with county and sub-county education officials to
ensure that no child is locked out of secondary education owing to
factors removed from their ability to access education.
In this regard, Ministry officials will be required to file accurate daily
returns on the status of reporting to schools to ensure 100% transition.
This means that parents/guardians and school managers must facilitate
the smooth admission of all children to secondary schools.
Kenya Primary School Education Assessment
As I promised during the release of the KCPE Examination results, the
results of the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment were to be
released this month. I am happy to announce that the exercise of
marking has now been completed and schools will be able to
access the KPSEA reports through the Kenya National Examinations
Council portal from tomorrow, Tuesday, 17th January 2023.
A total of 1,253,577 learners sat the 2022 KPSEA in 32,555 centres across the country. I wish to announce that all these learners will
transit to Junior Secondary School.
Given that this is the first time such reports will be available for schools, I direct the Kenya National Examinations Council to collaborate with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development and Teachers Service Commission to assist the schools in properly interpreting the reports for learners and parents.
I also direct the Council to hold joint discussions with the KICD and
TSC on the national KPSEA reports with a view to providing feedback
on the CBC curriculum that can inform ongoing curriculum reviews.
Junior Secondary School
At the Junior Secondary School level, all the necessary arrangements
have been put in place to ensure that all learners join Grade 7. These
include:
1. His Excellency President William Ruto has directed that the
National Treasury set aside Ksh15,000 per learner as capitation
to facilitate free learning in all public schools. In total, the
The government will spend Kshs 9.6 Billion for the learners in Junior Secondary Schools this calendar year. It, therefore, means that no
school should charge any fees for Grade 7 learners unless such
schools have boarding wings.
2. Prohibition of public schools from charging any admission fee for
any Grade Seven learner due to the 100 per cent transition policy
in the same school where the learners were enrolled in Grade Six.
3. The Teachers Service Commission is recruiting 30,000 new
teachers, the majority of whom will be attending to learners in
the Junior Secondary School level.
4. Although learners will join Grade Seven in the schools where they
were enrolled in Grade Six, there is need to distinguish the Junior
Secondary School section. As a result, a decision has been made
that parents and Boards of Management agree on the new
uniforms for Junior Secondary School learners.
5. Schools are expected to have elaborate admission processes in
place for Junior Secondary School learners through NEMIS. An
admission register must be in place with proper induction and
orientation programme.
6. The Ministry of Education is awaiting the recommendations of the
Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms regarding the
curriculum for the CBC to inform any needed changes in the
content of all levels of learning. As a result, we will be issuing
more guidelines on the Junior Secondary Education level from
time to time.
Monitoring of Form One Reporting through NEMIS
The Ministry will use the NEMIS platform for efficient and effective
management and monitoring of learners in the school system. In this
regard, principals will be required to file accurate daily returns on the status of reporting to schools. To mitigate against weak network
coverage, the Ministry has developed an innovative offline admission
application for principals which can be accessed through mobile
phones.
On the same note, Principals are directed not to admit students on
NEMIS before they physically report to the school. In addition,
parents/guardians are encouraged to facilitate smooth admission of all
learners to secondary schools by submission of the requisite documents
for NEMIS registration.
Affirmative action for transition and retention of needy
students.
The Ministry has been offering support to needy students through
Elimu scholarship. Previously these efforts were further complemented by other scholarships from our partners from various organizations. In
this regard, I wish to appreciate these scholarships and bursary
providers such as Equity Bank, KCB, Co-Operative Bank, NG-CDF, and
the County Government who supported the achievement of 100%
transition. We request them to continue supporting us in this endeavor.
I take this opportunity to thank well-wishers and philanthropists who
have supported at least one student in covering the costs of other non-tuition
related expenses such as school uniforms and personal effects for
needy children.
The Ministry shall also strengthen the School feeding and sanitary
towels provision programmes to enhance retention. Notable also is the
EDU-Afya Medical covers all students registered in NEMIS in public
secondary schools.
School Fees
The Ministry has issued fee guidelines for the boarding students to
which schools should adhere. I wish to state that Public Secondary
School fees for the 2023 academic calendar year will not be changed
and will remain at Kshs 53,554 while that of County and Extra-County
Schools will remain at Kshs 40,555. On its part, the Government will
maintain its capitation per student in all Public Secondary Schools at
Kshs 22,244. Parents whose children are enrolled in Public day
Secondary Schools should not be charged any fees because the
The government is catering for all the tuition costs amounting to Kshs
22,244. Parents should report incidents of any students turned away
for not paying higher fees and other levies to the nearest education
office for action. I also wish to challenge parents and guardians to take
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their obligations seriously by ensuring prompt payment of school fees
in boarding schools.
School infrastructure and resources
Given that about 70% of the secondary students are day scholars is a
clear indication that more support should be directed toward developing
these schools. I, therefore, encourage all boarding schools to introduce
day wings to enhance access and cut down the cost of education. This is
also in line with CBC requirements for parental engagement in the delivery
of the curriculum.
Policy development and implementation
The Ministry in conjunction with other stakeholders has developed
policy guidelines to enhance the smooth management of education. It
has been noted with concern that cases of non-compliance with some
of these policies negatively affect transition, retention, and quality of
education. School Boards of Management should acquaint themselves
with the existing policies and ensure implementation and compliance.
Accordingly, there should be no cases of illegal exclusion, arbitrary
suspension, and forced transfers of learners in public schools.
Automation of Ministerial service delivery
I wish to bring to your attention the emphasis of the H.E. the President
that all the government business delivery mechanisms be automated.
In this regard, the Ministry is committed to automating activities
relating to service delivery to its clients. Sources of any information will
therefore be migrated into NEMIS. Schools are called upon to ensure
proper enlisting of students in NEMIS for Capitation, KCPE, and KCSE
registrations, and monitoring of students’ affairs including fees
payment, disciplinary procedures, and class attendance. It will also be
mandatory for schools to enlist all their BOM members and non-teaching staff in the platforms that shall be available in NEMIS.
Assessment of Junior Secondary Schools
The learners joining Grade Seven shall report to their respective Junior
Secondary Schools on 30th January 2023.
The Ministry is currently carrying out a comprehensive countrywide
assessment of all public and private schools to determine their
readiness to admit learners to Junior Secondary School. The exercise,
which began on 9th January 2023 is set to end on 20th January 2023.
The assessment considers, among other factors, whether the
the respective school has adequate land to host the Junior Secondary
School level; availability of buildings to be used as classrooms and
laboratories; and whether the school has adequate water and power
supply.
As of Friday 13th, January 2023, a total of 14,589 public and private
schools had been assessed. Of these, 13,221 schools had been
approved to host the Junior Secondary Schools. I direct our
multisectoral teams to work round the clock to ensure they complete
the assessment exercise by the 20th January 2023 deadline.
FOCUS ON KCPE 2022 PLACEMENT
Form One Selection and placement exercise was undertaken to ensure
a smooth transition from primary to secondary schooling for 2022
KCPE Examination candidates. This process has been carried out in a
way that ensured fairness in the placement of KCPE Examination
candidates of 2022. The placement was based on choice, merit, and
availability of places.
The 2022 KCPE Examination candidates constitute the sixth and second
last cohort of learners under the 8-4-4 system to be admitted to
secondary schools under the Government’s policy of 100% transition.
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The Ministry is committed to ensuring that parents/guardians with
learners joining Form One are not overburdened with unnecessary
requirements. Principals should exercise caution while listing the
requirements so that the cost of education is reduced as much as
possible. Principals should ensure that no student is sent away from
school over illegal levies.
Let me now focus on the placement of 2022 KCPE candidates. The
Ministry has placed all eligible candidates appropriately in secondary
schools in keeping with the 100% transition policy. This selection
the process was strictly guided by the principles of merit, choice, equity
and availability of space in placing candidates. This was conducted as
follows:
S.NO CATEGORY FEMALE MALE TOTAL
1 County 107,461 91,566 199,027
2 Extra County 111,105 117,055 228,160
3 National 18,794 20,178 38,972
4 SNE 871 948 1,819
5 Sub County 372,459 387,203 762,610
Total 610,690 616,950 1,230,588
In the placement, all candidates who scored 400 marks and above were
placed in National or Extra County schools of their choice. The Special
Needs Education candidates were also placed in the regular schools of
their preference, while others were placed in special schools based on
their disability categories on merit and choice.
Affirmative Action in Slums during Form One Selection
The Ministry has applied affirmative action to achieve equity for children
from the slum areas. In this year’s selection, 270 students from slum
areas were placed in national and extra-county schools of their choice.
This is in addition to those placed through merit and other criteria. This
intervention is in line with the government policy to achieve parity in
education by considering the needy and vulnerable children in informal
settlements in urban areas.
Placement of Refugees
For the first time, the Ministry placed 9,019 learners from primary
schools located in the refugee camps in public secondary schools. This
is in line with the 2017 Djibouti declaration on Regional Refugee
Education that stipulates the need to enhance the capacity of IGAD
member states to implement commitments to quality education and
learning for refugees and host communities.
Counties with limited capacities
The following Counties had inadequate capacities according to their
candidature as indicated in the list.
1 Nairobi 109
27,145 72,232
45,087
2 Kilifi 164
31,258 41,470
10,212
3 Mombasa 56
12,801 22,360
9,559
4 Kajiado 95
20,640 25,605
4,965
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5 Turkana 63
12,096 16,796
4,700
6 Garissa 41
7,273 9,908
2,635
7 Kwale 104
22,633
24,442
1,809
8
Taita
Taveta 54
6,768 8,477
1,709
9 Kitui 449
41,184 42,262
1,078
10 Narok 171
33,360 34,262
902
11
Tana
River 38
5,232 6,035
803
12 Baringo 176
18,144 18,757
613
13
West
Pokot 185
16,178 16,687
509
14 Lamu 27
3,264 3,760
496
To mitigate the shortfall, candidates were placed in other counties with
sufficient capacities.
The above scenario can be considered an eye-opener to an underlying
problem that calls for serious early redress in the wake of CBC. It is
against this background that I will take the personal initiative to consult
with leadership from these areas to address this perennial deficit in
capacity
KCPE Candidates’ School Choices
During the selection, it became clear that a large number of candidates
did not receive proper guidance and direction when choosing schools.
This resulted in some schools attracting far many applicants against
their capacities. These schools included:
1 KABIANGA HIGH SCHOOL
153,074
768
2 NANYUKI HIGH SCHOOL
148,827
576
3 NYANDARUA HIGH SCHOOL
137,511
240
4 PANGANI GIRLS
119,265
384
5 MASENO SCHOOL
105,504
720
6
ALLIANCE GIRLS’ HIGH
SCHOOL
104,763
384
7 NAKURU HIGH SCHOOL
103,909
336
8 KAPSABET BOYS
99,542
384
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9 MANGU HIGH SCHOOL
98,146
480
10
BUTERE GIRLS HIGH
SCHOOL
95,550
The results of the above means many candidates will not get their
choices and have to accept that it is not possible to be placed in their
“dream” school. I wish to call upon head teachers and parents to ensure
candidates make wise choices through proper advice.
In addition, it was noted that 33,984 students from 2,673 schools did
not select any school. To this end, I direct county directors of education
to establish the concerned schools with a view to instituting
administrative actions against the headteachers and/or schools
management for failing to adequately register learners for
examinations.
Form One Reporting Dates
The reporting period for all 2023 Form One students will be from 6th
February 2023 to 13th February 2023. In case of any queries, parents
are advised to visit their respective County Directors of Education for
assistance. I am directing that all admitted students should be captured
on NEMIS by 2nd March 2023. All the CDEs are required to ensure
compliance with this requirement.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As I conclude my remarks, I wish to announce that this year’s Form
One selection was fully computerized from National to Sub-County
levels. Candidates, parents, or guardians can now access joining
instructions that are available online for all categories of schools
through the Ministry’s website www.education.go.ke. For any queries,
you are asked to check on Frequently Asked Questions under form one
selection. Assistance may be obtained by writing an email to
placement@education.go.ke.
The results can also be checked by texting the candidate’s index
number to 22263. Schools will access and download their selection lists
by logging onto the NEMIS platform. Parents are asked to take their
learners to the schools they have been placed in. Those who may not be satisfied may approach desired schools for assistance.
I now wish to declare the 2023 Form One selection, placement and
admission results for the 2022 KCPE Examination candidates officially
released.
Thank you and God bless you
