Economy

Dispute over Form One intake clouds KCPE exam results

mutula

The minister for Education Mutula Kilonzo (right) flanked by the his PS George Godia addresses a press conference. The minister is expected to release the KCPE exam results on Monday. Photo/File

A fresh dispute is simmering over the selection of pupils to join the 78 national secondary schools after the government disregarded proposals by a task force appointed last year to guide the admissions.

Correspondence seen by the Business Daily shows that the government wants only a fifth of the slots in national schools to be allocated to pupils who sat the 2012 examination in private primary schools.

The association of private school owners, however, wants two fifths of the places reserved for its candidates.

“The proposals, if adopted, will see our students once again punished for performing well in a private school,” said Peter Ndoro, the KPSA chief executive. “We have already informed the ministry of our disapproval and we hope that they will give us an audience.”

An analysis of admission scenarios compiled by the association and based on the latest ministry guidelines indicate that about 3,094 students from private schools would get national school slots compared to 12,467 from public schools.

This would represent an 80 per cent admission ratio in favour of public schools compared to 65 per cent last year.

The dispute is set to cloud celebrations by those of the 811,930 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam candidates who will qualify to take the 15,560 places available in national schools by merit when Education minister Mutula Kilonzo releases the results Monday.

“As much as the government is trying to advance equity, there is need to allocate the slots fairly and not punish students for the choice of school,” said Kenya National Association of Parents chairman Musau Ndunda.

Under the new guidelines, the top two boys and girls in each of the 284 districts would qualify for national school slots by merit. Going by past performance, private schools are likely to dominate these positions at a ratio of 2:1 over public schools.

Ministry of Education officials were not available for comment while the mobile phones of Mr Kilonzo and Education secretary George Godia went unanswered.

Parents want this merit class to be increased to the top five boys and girls in each district while the private schools want 70 per cent of the positions available assigned on merit as was recommended by a task force last year.

The balance, KPSA said, would be distributed by quotas to public schools in marginalised areas.

These positions exclude the 925 students who are picked to join schools reserved for children of the Kenya Defence Forces personnel (Moi Forces Academy, Nairobi and in Lanet, Nakuru), children of police officers (Utumishi Academy) and needy children (Starehe Boys and Starehe Girls).

KPSA is, however, proposing that students admitted on merit be increased eightfold to 10,244 slots shared equally between the private and public streams excluding the special admissions.

“The balance of the vacancies (4,392) after the pre-select schools and merit considerations should be distributed based on the candidature strength between the private and public schools,” said KPSA in its proposals.
Overall, private schools would get 39.9 per cent of the slots in national schools under the KPSA proposal instead of 19.9 per cent under the ministry’s guidelines.
Last year, a similar number of students were admitted to pre-selected national schools while 9,289 went to the other 43 national schools leading to a 65:35 per cent ratio in favour of public school admissions.

(Read: Academy pupils suffer fresh blow in Form One intake)

Mr Ndoro said the criteria had seen over 17,000 students transfer from private schools at Standard Seven to public schools in an attempt to “beat the system” and increase their chances of getting into top schools.

KPSA has over the past two years fought to have the ministry review the district quota formula maintaining that admission should be based on merit as opposed to the type of school pupils attend.

Last year, the association sued Sam Ongeri, the then Education minister, seeking to have the High Court compel him to make the criterion public. This was the second year in a row that KSPA sought help in the corridors of justice to end what it termed as discrimination against its students.

The ministry eventually gave in to the association’s demands and formed an 11-member taskforce to look into the concerns, promising to “refine the selection formula and make it more predictable to all stakeholders by ensuring that equity, regional balance and merit are met.”

A year later, however, the taskforce’s report is yet to be made public with Mr Ndoro saying it had proposed that 70 per cent of the slots be shared equally and on merit between the two types of schools and the rest proportionally given to pupils from marginalised communities.

“We were not consulted about the new guidelines. It seems that the ministry has disregarded the proposals the taskforce suggested last year,” Mr Ndoro said.
Last year, most of the private school pupils were admitted to the newly-promoted national schools to attain the 35 per cent target.

The students were given 2,789 or 46 per cent of the 5,855 places in the 30 newly elevated schools compared to 819 of the 4,223 vacancies in established national schools such as Alliance, Mang’u and Kenya High.

Former Education permanent secretary James ole Kiyiapi — who was behind the affirmative selection criteria — however insisted that the new national schools such as Bunyore, Muthale and Pangani Girls were as good as the initial 48 schools.

Prof Kiyiapi is now running to be the President of Kenya in the March 4 General Election.

Three weeks ago, government officials began a comprehensive inspection of all 30 elevated schools to ensure that they met the required standards.

Standard Eight candidates sat the KCPE exams between December 4 and 6 last year after delays caused by a three-week strike by teachers in September that paralysed learning in public institutions.

The results, which are traditionally released on December 28 were delayed following the extension of the school terms – and examination dates. KCPE faces an uncertain future with proposals that it should be scrapped and replaced with a system that allows learners to proceed straight to secondary school.

Meanwhile, parents and candidates will be able to get the exam results through their mobile phones by sending the index numbers to 5052 after the minister announces the results.

[email protected]