Minister for Education Sam Ongeri during the launch of Form One selection. Photo/CHRIS OJOW
Confusion has hit the ongoing selection of Form One students in Nyanza Province due to a coding error of secondary schools.
Names of schools in the newly created districts were missing from the lists sent out from which the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidates were to choose their preferred institutions if they passed.
A top school in the region, St Joseph’s Rapogi High, has now been forced to pick candidates with marks as low as 263, down from its minimum of 350, because the school’s name was missing from the list sent out to candidates who sat the exams last year.
The school, which is now situated in Uriri District, selected from a list that had already been used by other provincial schools to make their choices. Rongo District, for instance, has close to 40 secondary schools but the list sent out by the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) contained only 13 schools.
However, the Nyanza provincial director of education, Mr Geoffrey Cherongis, downplayed the crisis, saying the coding system and the missing names would be corrected in future.
“The selection of students is based on merit and the quota system. A school known to pick students with high marks may sometimes be forced to take those with low grades depending on the overall performance of a particular region … We want all children to be in school,” he said.
Mr Cherongis said the Ministry of Education was now emphasizing on equal distribution of chances to all children, including those from rural areas.
Teachers said pupils who scored high marks ended up being called to little-known schools as a result of the missing names.
But when contacted, the Rapogi High School principal, Mr Thomas Kogolla, said the situation would affect performance of some big schools in the national examinations.
“What will you expect when some provincial schools have taken pupils with 360 marks and above and others admitting those with about 260? The competition will not be fair at all,” he said.
Parents protested at the “errors” and asked the Ministry of Education to shed more light on the matter.
Source: Daily Nation
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