At least 30,000 candidates who sat the 2021 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam will get places in national schools.
They include 11,857 candidates who scored 400 marks and above, out of the possible 500 marks, and another 19,000 who scored over 350 marks, it emerged yesterday.Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said the selection is already underway and will be completed in two weeks. He urged officers tasked with the job to stick to the timelines.
Smooth selection process
“Already, the Ministry has put in place measures to ensure the selection is conducted soonest. In two weeks, I will want to know whether it is complete or not,” said the CS when he released the results on Monday.
Some 315,275 candidates scored 300-399 marks, another 578,197 had 200-299 marks, 307,532 others had 100-199 marks while 1,170 had between 0-99 marks. All are expected to transition to secondary school under the 100 per cent absorption policy.
Although the mean average performance and quality of grades were higher in the 2021 results, so too were the number of candidates with the lowest marks compared with the previous six years.
Over the years, top candidates have been scoring 430 marks and above compared with 428 marks this year.
In the 2020 examination, the top candidate had 433 marks while in 2019 the highest had 440 marks.
Principles of equity
Despite the difference in marks, the Ministry has assured that it will strictly apply the principles of equity, fairness, merit, transparency and inclusiveness in placing candidates to various school categories.
The placement will also be based on school choices, performance and affirmative action, among other modalities.
Students picked 11 schools of their choice — four National, three Extra-County, two County and another two Sub-County schools.Placement to national schools is usually pegged on available spaces, performance, quota system, individual learner’s choice and the top five candidates from each county.
Similarly, top performers are also expected to join Extra-County schools of their choice.
Last year, Magoha said Nanyuki High attracted the highest applicants, receiving 154,524 applications compared with a capacity of 384 learners.
The school attracted more students than other top performing ones like Alliance High School, Kenya High School and Alliance Girls.
The second most selected school was Kabianga High, which attracted 142,640 against a capacity of 480 slots, followed by Pangani Girls High with 124,982 applicants against 384 places.
The fourth was Nyandarua High School, with 123,976 applications against 288 places available.
Alliance Girls High School came a distant fifth with 105,053 applicants against 384 Form One slots.
Others that had many applications were Maseno, Nakuru High, Kapsabet Boys, Butere High, Mbooni Girls, Kisumu Girls and Moi Girls, Eldoret.Bulk of candidates
Some 36,254 were admitted to National schools across the country last year, another 201,077 allocated to Extra County schools, 213,591 to County schools while the bulk of the candidates, totaling 718,516, were placed in Sub-County schools.
In the 2020 placement, the majority of candidates who scored 400 marks and above were placed in National or Extra County schools of their choice.
Magoha also said the Special Needs candidates were placed in regular schools of their preference, while others were enrolled in special schools based on their disability categories in merit and choices.
For affirmative action in slums, the CS said the Ministry opened up opportunities for a number of children from these areas.
Through this, an additional 667 learners from slums were placed in National and Extra County schools last year.
Slums identified under this arrangement were from Thika, Nyeri, Kisumu, Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru and Eldoret towns.