Academy pupils suffer fresh blow in Form One intake
Education minister Sam Ongeri. KPSA had sued the Education ministry seeking to have the selection criteria dropped. Mr Ongeri, was ordered to publish the selection criteria which many argued was unfair to students from private schools. Photo/FILE
Data compiled from postings on the Ministry of Education’s website shows that students from private primary schools filled only 819 of the 4,223 vacancies in established national schools such as Alliance, Mang’u, Kenya High, Nairobi School and Loreto Limuru Girls.
That means they only took 21 per cent of the vacancies in the 18 national schools that existed before 30 others were elevated last year in a crash programme meant to assuage a public outcry over the Form One selection criteria adopted last year.
“This is a very unfair way of treating our children since it is a well known fact that infrastructure between the old and newly-upgraded national schools is worlds apart,” said John Kabui, the Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) chairman.
The 21 per cent ratio in these schools is way below the 35 per cent of the slots that Education minister Sam Ongeri said had been reserved for private school candidates when he launched the selection earlier this month.
However, the data shows that the overall ratio was attained by sending private school pupils to take up nearly half of the places in the newly-elevated national schools. They were given 2,789 —or 46 per cent — of the 5,855 places in the 30 newly elevated schools.
Specifically, private primary school pupils will take up more than half of the spaces in new national schools like Karima Girls (66 per cent), Maranda High (61 per cent), Kapsabet Boys (58 per cent), Kanga High and Bunyore Girls (57.8 per cent); Muthale Girls (57.2), Pangani Girls (56.7 per cent) and Moi High School Mbiruri (56.1 per cent).
The only traditional national schools that admitted more than 35 per cent of their classes from private schools, commonly known as academies, were Starehe Boys, Utumishi Academy, Starehe Girls and Moi Forces Academy which admit students from pre-selected pools irrespective of whether they are from the private or public streams.
Vacancies in these schools are preferentially given to candidates from needy backgrounds and those whose parents serve in the uniformed forces and the public service. The data suggests there was a deliberate attempt to consign pupils from private schools that are believed to have better learning environment to the less glamorous national schools.
Of the initial national schools, Nakuru Girls, Nakuru High, Lenana, Nairobi School, Mary Hill Girls, Limuru Girls, Maseno and Moi Girls School Eldoret took less than 10 per cent of the candidates from academies.
A teacher’s lobby group has joined owners of private schools to oppose the selection criteria, demanding that the ministry repeats the already completed Form One selection, an unlikely outcome.
“The government seems to be playing populist politics by trying to hide the deep-rooted problems in the sector by apportioning the bulk of the slots to public schools,” said Abraham Kawewa, chairman of the Association of Professional Teachers (Tap).
He said there was no logic for students to select schools only for their choices to be disregarded after they qualified.
Last week, it emerged that many top performers from key private institutions had missed out on their first choice selections and had instead been admitted to other schools that they had not selected.
The Education ministry, however, has defended the slanted allocations saying the newly-elevated schools, were selected on the basis of consistently good performance in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.
“If you look at it critically, the percentage of private schooled students admitted to the initial 18 national schools is even higher than the 17 per cent of the total candidature such students represented in the exam,” said James ole Kiyiapi, the Education permanent secretary.
According to him, Sh12.5 million had already been disbursed to the new national schools to renovate classrooms and improve boarding facilities.
However, the initial allocation was meant to be between Sh25 million and Sh30 million to each of the institutions.
“If you allowed every child to have their way, they would all say they want to go to Alliance High School or Kenya High School. The reality of the matter is it is impossible for everybody to go there,” Mr Kiyiapi said.
One highlighted case was that of Brian Nzai who sat his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams at Kaloleni Junior Academy in Kilifi County and scored 437 marks, emerging tenth nationally. He was posted to Kenyatta High School in Kilifi County, a recently upgraded national school.
The PS said the only chance Brian had to gain admission to the school of his choice was through swopping of slots with other students seeking to move in the opposite direction.
For the second year in a row, the government has come under intense pressure over the system used in selecting students to join national secondary schools.
KPSA has sued the ministry seeking to have the selection criteria dropped but the application has been denied on both occassions. However, Education minister, Sam Ongeri, was ordered to publish the selection criteria which many argued was unfair to students from private schools.
“All along these criteria have been kept a secret and therefore we cannot give our counter views based on them,” said the association. This year, a total of 3,598 candidates from academies were picked to join national schools while 6,684 slots were taken up by their counterparts from public institutions. In all, 10,282 national school vacancies were available.
Overall 562,761 students were admitted to secondary schools countrywide, meaning that 212,239 pupils missed out on vacancies, compared to 267,668 last year.
