Schools to close on July 10 for week-long holiday
Schools that reopened for the Third Term on Monday after a seven-week break will close on July 20 for a week-long holiday.
Education CS George Magoha said schools will start a new calendar year after the one-week break in a bid to make up for the time lost during the prolonged closure last year.
“We deliberately created a tight academic calendar that enables us to accelerate completion of school terms. The New Year entails the rollout of the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) Grade 5. For the avoidance of doubt, we shall all roll out grade 5 together; whether you are in private or public schools. There is only one government,” he said.
The Education CS was speaking on Monday during the release of results for the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam announced that there will be five examinations this year.
Candidates for the 2021 KCSE and Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams will sit for their papers in March next year.
“As you are aware, we are already behind schedule and therefore the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) will begin the registration of the 2021 candidates ahead of the March examinations. In December 2022 we will administer another examination. Hopefully, I will not be there, but we shall have planned for everything so that those who take over from us will have a seamless process,” said Prof Magoha.
He said that the first Grade 6 summative examination will be administered next year, saying the president has sworn in a permanent secretary to ‘midwife’ the CBC changes.
Term One will begin on July 26, learners will also have another one-week break from October 2 to October 10 before they open for the second term the following day. It will run until December 23.
Next year will also have four terms before schools revert to the normal calendar in January 2023.