Shock as 17,000 miss form one slots in regional schools

About 17,000 candidates who sat this year’s KCPE may miss Form One slots in regional schools.

Data released by Ministry of Education reveals that there are no adequate slots in secondary schools for 9,310 boys and 7,395 girls who sat the examination.

Overall, the data shows that of the 1,038,162 candidates who sat the examination, only 1,021,457 will have slots available for them in secondary schools. Some 31,337 students have already been placed across the 103 national schools. Also already placed are 1,626 students to Special Needs Education schools. There are some 35 Special Needs Education (SNE) secondary schools, according to ministry data.

Pre-selections to all the SNEs, Starehe Boys and Starehe Girls, Moi Forces Academy (Nairobi and Lanet), Utumishi Academy and Moi Tea Girls is already completed.

Selection to extra-county, county and sub-county schools started yesterday with slots available for some 998,000 candidates.

Ministry data shows that there are some 129,168 slots in all the 540 extra-county schools. ALSO

There are also some 151,605 slots available in all the 1,030 county schools. And majority slots – 647,305 – have been declared in 7,085 sub-county schools.

Private schools that declared 66,992 slots last year will this year make available 60,356 vacancies for Form One.

Selection of candidates to extra-county schools is based on a 20:40:40 ratio, to be shared across the host sub-county, the host county and other counties in that order.

The available places in county schools will be shared out between the sub-counties on a 20:80 ratio, spread across the host sub-county and the rest of the sub-counties in that order. All the candidates for sub-county schools will be selected from the host sub-county based on merit and choice.

These criteria are applied regardless of whether candidates sat KCPE in private or public schools

The document says that quotas for each sub-county in a given school are computed based on the sub-county’s candidature strength.

The capacity for each school is computed on the basis of 48 students per class for national and extra-county schools; and 45 for county and sub-county schools.

Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said at the end of the process, the ministry will have carried out the Form One selection exercise using criteria that are fair and accurate. “All candidates have an equal chance of getting selected to their preferred schools based on merit, equity, choice and affirmative action,” said Amina.

Reporting dates Amina said on Monday that the ministry was determined to ensure that Form One students report to school as early as possible. She announced that reporting dates for all Form Ones in all categories of schools is January 7, 2019 and not later than January 11, 2019. “As I announced during the release of the KCPE results, there will be no second selection. There is therefore no reason for parents to delay their children from reporting to school on the provided dates,” Amina said. Overall, Amina said there are some 12,045 places available for refugees in Kakuma and Dadaab Refugee camp.