The fate of candidates from private primary schools who missed out on Form One admissions in national secondary schools was sealed on Wednesday after the High Court ordered that the case filed by a lobby group goes to full hearing.
The court was expected to rule on whether barring the candidates from joining Form One in national schools was discriminatory and against the constitution.
Mr Justice Daniel Musinga instead, ordered full hearing of the case after hearing from counsel for the Kenya Private Schools Association, which filed the constitutional reference, and a state counsel.
The case will now be heard from February 25, almost a month after Form Ones will have reported to secondary schools and replacements made.
“What this means now is that the affected students will miss out irrespective of the ruling and we only hope that the current KCPE candidates won’t suffer the same fate,” said KPSA lawyer Chege Wainaina.
Justice Musinga said the application to stop the selection had been overtaken by events since the government has already implemented the new Form One admissions system.
The new selection policy is at the centre of a row with private school owners saying it is discriminative, unconstitutional, and untimely.
“We are left in an awkward position now that we have nothing to tell parents of the affected students and this will definitely affect our intake this year,” said KPSA chairman John Kabui Mwai.
“The government has also not made it clear which guidelines it will use on the current candidates so that we advise our students accordingly in choosing schools this time round,” said Mr Mwai.
Announcing the new guidelines, Education minister Sam Ongeri said the available places in the 18 national schools would be shared between public and private schools at a ratio of 3:1.
School owners say the policy favours children from public schools.
Last week, Senior Principal State Counsel Wanjiku Mbiyu argued against the move to stop the exercise, saying letters of admission to national schools had been sent out.
“Any orders barring the exercise will throw the entire Education ministry into disarray,” she said, urging the court to throw out the case.
The selection of students set to join national, provincial, and district schools is already complete and the second intake for those joining provincial and district schools is ongoing.
Form Ones will report on Monday 31 with replacement scheduled to start on February 14.
Mr Wainaina said the ministry’s directive was against the spirit of the new Constitution as enshrined in Section 5 of the Children’s Act.
But the Education minister said the decision was informed by provisions of the new Constitution.
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