Selection for junior high schools to start this week

Grade Six learners will from this week begin selecting their placements to junior secondary school (JSS) ahead of next year’s Grade Seven roll-out.

According to the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec), the portal was opened on Monday until August 30.

 Knec boss David Njengere Tuesday confirmed that, despite being schools closed, the portal has been opened and that learners are free to start selecting their preferred secondary schools.

Learners, with the help of their school heads and teachers, are required to log into the portal, select the Grade Six register and choose their preferred schools.

The selection criteria will require learners to select an option of two national, two regional, two county, four sub-county and two private schools of their choice.

The criteria is similar to that used in the selection of Form One places by Standard Eight leavers. There are over 10,487 secondary schools nationwide — 8,933 public and 1,554 private.

While releasing the JSS placement guidelines, Education Cabinet secretary George Magoha said public secondary schools which share a compound with a public primary school shall use the available classrooms in the latter institution as additional learning space.

Private secondary schools

Existing registered private secondary schools will be available for learners whose parents will pay the requisite fees.

The Education ministry has identified some 2,300 public primary schools that share a compound with secondary schools to host JSS. The government is expecting private schools to construct over 5,000 classrooms for JSS by January.

Investors have also been encouraged to establish standalone schools to host JSS. Over 7,000 classrooms meant for Grade Seven have been completed in various public secondary schools. Another 3,500 are expected to be completed by the end of August.

“Learners, in consultation with their parents and teachers, will be given an opportunity to select a public or private secondary school of their choice for their JSS education. Parents shall meet the cost of learning in private schools as is the usual practice,” said Prof Magoha.  Some private primary schools have assured parents that they will offer a JSS curriculum and asked them to consider selecting them.

The transition of learners from Grade Six to junior high will be guided by the assessment outcomes of the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA).

Final assessment

Learners are set to sit for their final assessment from November 28 to November 30.

The summative assessment will contribute to 40 percent of learners’ scores. They will have acquired their 60 percent from school based assessments.

The school-based assessments are those that were administered at Grades Four (20 percent), Five (20 percent) and Six (20 percent).

The final Grade Six assessment began on July 18 and was scheduled to end September 9. However, with the two weeks’ closure period, teachers are expecting to receive further communication from Knec. A total of 1,268,830 Grade Six learners are expected to transition to JSS.

Prof Magoha said, the Ministry of Education and Knec have put in place the structures that will ensure that the placement of learners to secondary schools will be done at the schools and will be based on performance in the KPSEA, equity, choice of schools by learners as advised by parents and teachers as well as the declared capacity at the different institutions.

Schools are scheduled to reopen on Thursday based on the directives issued by Prof Magoha.

The schools were closed two weeks ago to make way for the General Election.

School heads and unions have since called for adjustment of school dates to ensure that Standard Eight, Form Four and Grade Six learners are well prepared to sit their national exams in November.

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