Form One selection to begin next month

Candidates who sat the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations will know the secondary schools they will join at the end of next month.

The delay this year has been occasioned by the fact that the learners will not join secondary schools immediately.

The more than 1.1 million learners will have to wait until July to avoid an overlap since the 2020 Form One class still has one term to complete their academic year. In the revised school calendar, Term One of 2021 is scheduled to begin on July 26, 2021.

“To ensure that all candidates are placed in schools of their choice – based on performance and available vacancies – the Ministry of Education will employ a water-tight system that will be both credible and of high integrity,” Magoha said.

“The actual Form One selection exercise for all categories of schools will take place from May 28th, 2021,” he said.

The CS said there will be a 100 percent transition into secondary schools for all the 1,179,192 candidates.

Intervention

“I wish to assure the country that the Ministry has already conducted an audit of all new and existing vacancies in all our private and public schools to enable us to admit all learners under the Free Day Secondary Education programme,” the CS further said.

“We are determined to work with the relevant agencies to ensure that no candidate misses a place in secondary school.”

Of the more than one million candidates, 9,770 scored over 400 marks while 243,320 attained between 301 and 400 marks. Some 586,886 pupils attained between 201 and 300 marks while 262,307 candidates had between 101 and 200 marks. On the other hand, 1,173 pupils had 100 marks and below.

“I wish to sincerely thank His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta for his intervention that enabled us to extend the scholarship programme to cover candidates from informal settlements in urban areas, which were initially not covered under the programme,” he added.

Prof Magoha also reiterated an announcement that he made earlier in the week that schools will reopen for third term on May 10 except Grade Four and Form One.

“As a result, we are scheduled to reopen schools for third term on May 10, 2021 for all classes except Grade Four and Form One. We are hopeful that we will open as scheduled although we continue monitoring the country’s Covid-19 situation and the schools’ preparedness to adhere to all Ministry of Health guidelines of managing the virus,” he said.