FORM ONE 2024 PLACEMENT
Form One Selection and placement exercise was undertaken to ensure smooth transition from primary to secondary schooling for the 2023 KCPE Examination candidates.
This process has been carried out in a way that ensured fairness in the placement of KCPE Examination candidates of 2023. The placement was based on choice, merit and availability of places.
The 2022 KCPE Examination candidates constitute the sixth and second last cohort of learners under the 8-4-4 system to be admitted to secondary schools under the Government’s policy of 100% transition.
The Ministry of Education is committed to ensure that parents/guardians with learners joining Form One are not overburdened with unnecessary requirements.
Principals should exercise caution while listing the requirements so that the cost of education is reduced as much as possible. Principals should ensure that no student is sent away from school over illegal levies.
Focus on the placement of 2023 KCPE candidates.
The Ministry has placed all eligible candidates appropriately in secondary schools in keeping with the 100% transition policy.
This selection process was strictly guided by the principles of merit, choice, equity and availability of space in placing candidates.
This was conducted as follows:
| S.NO | CATEGORY | FEMALE | MALE | TOTAL |
| 1 | County | 107,461 | 91,566 | 199,027 |
| 2 | Extra County | 111,105 | 117,055 | 228,160 |
| 3 | National | 18,794 | 20,178 | 38,972 |
| 4 | SNE | 871 | 948 | 1,819 |
| 5 | Sub County | 372,459 | 387,203 | 762,610 |
| Total | 610,690 | 616,950 | 1,230,588 |
In the placement, all candidates who scored 400 marks and above were placed in National or Extra County schools of their choice.
The Special Needs Education candidates were also placed in the regular schools of their preference, while others were placed in special schools based on their disability categories on merit and choice.
Affirmative Action in Slums
The Ministry has applied affirmative action to achieve equity for children from the slum areas. In this year’s selection, 270 students from slum areas were placed in national and extra-county schools of their choice.
This is in addition to those placed through merit and other criteria. This intervention is in line with the government policy to achieve parity in education by considering the needy and vulnerable children in informal settlements in urban areas.
Placement of Refugees
For the first time, the Ministry placed 9,019 learners from primary schools located in the refugee camps in public secondary schools. This is in line with the 2017 Djibouti declaration on Regional Refugee Education that stipulates the need to enhance capacity of IGAD member states to implement commitments to quality education and learning for refugees and host communities.
Counties with limited capacities
The following Counties had inadequate capacities according to their candidature as indicated in the table.
| S.N O | COUNTY | NO. OF SCHOOLS | CAPACITY | KCPE CANDIDATURE | DEFICIT |
| 1 | Nairobi | 109 | 27,145 | 72,232 | 45,087 |
| 2 | Kilifi | 164 | 31,258 | 41,470 | 10,212 |
| 3 | Mombasa | 56 | 12,801 | 22,360 | 9,559 |
| 4 | Kajiado | 95 | 20,640 | 25,605 | 4,965 |
| 5 | Turkana | 63 | 12,096 | 16,796 | 4,700 |
| 6 | Garissa | 41 | 7,273 | 9,908 | 2,635 |
| 7 | Kwale | 104 | 22,633 | 24,442 | 1,809 |
| 8 | Taita Taveta | 54 | 6,768 | 8,477 | 1,709 |
| 9 | Kitui | 449 | 41,184 | 42,262 | 1,078 |
| 10 | Narok | 171 | 33,360 | 34,262 | 902 |
| 11 | Tana River | 38 | 5,232 | 6,035 | 803 |
| 12 | Baringo | 176 | 18,144 | 18,757 | 613 |
| 13 | West Pokot | 185 | 16,178 | 16,687 | 509 |
| 14 | Lamu | 27 | 3,264 | 3,760 | 496 |
To mitigate the shortfall, candidates were placed in other counties with sufficient capacities.
The above scenario can be considered an eye-opener to an underlying problem that calls for serious early redress in the wake of CBC.
It is against this background that the Education CS will take a personal initiative to consult with leadership from these areas to address this perennial deficit in capacity.