Top KCPE student accepted at Starehe Boys Centre
The top Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidates have been selected to join elite national schools.
According to the results released on Tuesday by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Nairobi, Victor Oduor, from Daisy Special School in Kakamega County, who scored 437 out of 500 marks, has been selected to join Starehe Boys Centre in the capital city.
SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS
A total of 24,795 candidates — including 63 special needs education students — will join the 103 national schools, compared to last year’s 23,085 and 20,291 in 2014.
Where possible, the top five candidates of either gender from every sub-county (district) were placed in national schools on the basis of the choices they made during registration for KCPE.
The CS said 65,331 candidates were selected to join extra-county schools. The projection for county schools is 133,785, sub-counties 492,576, special schools 1,449 and private schools 72,744.
“The merit consideration is meant to ensure that performance in examination is rewarded accordingly,” said the CS.
Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion asked the government not to pressure school heads to admit more students than they can handle.
Eighteen schools considered more prestigious were placed in the third cluster, meaning no candidate can select two of them. The schools include Alliance High, Alliance Girls, Mang’u High, Maseno, Starehe Boys, Starehe Girls, Nairobi, Lenana and Kenya High.
FORMER PROVINCIAL SCHOOLS
Some 30 national schools, most of which used to be top provincial schools, were lumped in cluster one. They include Pangani Girls, Maranda Boys, Lugulu Girls, Friends School Kamusinga, Meru, Kapsabet Boys, Kisii, Kakamega and Mama Ngina Girls School in Mombasa.
The second and fourth clusters have 25 and 30 schools, respectively, mainly from marginalised counties.
The selection guidelines also provide that, at extra-county schools, selection be based on the ratio of 20:40:40 — where 20 per cent is reserved for the host sub-county, 40 per cent for the host county and 40 per cent for other counties other than the host.
The Kenya Private Schools Association chief executive officer, Mr Peter Ndoro, described this year’s process as fair, while Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman Kahi Indimuli said schools were ready to receive the students next year.