CS Magoha announces Form 1 reporting date

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has announced August 2, 2021 as the reporting date for Form One students.

Speaking on Tuesday, CS Magoha officially launched the Form One selection exercise at Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD.

Unlike previous years, the Form One selection exercise will be conducted once, not allowing for students to revise their preferred schools in a second round of selection.

Capacity in public Secondary Schools

A total of 1,179,192 pupils sat for the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam, with a majority of 889,011 scoring below 300 marks.

President Uhuru Kenyatta meeting with KCPE candidates in Lang'ata President Uhuru Kenyatta meeting with KCPE candidates in Lang'ata Pulse Live Kenya

The 8,091 candidates who scored above 350 marks in the exam will be battling it out for placement in National Schools even as CS Magoha insisted that placement will accord needy and deserving students priority to the top schools.

He added that the government will also favour the needy students who show promise while issuing scholarships from the ministry.

"Those who are bombarding me with requests, stop wasting my time! My gold standard is that child in Mukuru Kwa Njenga who has 430 marks and is required to go to Kenya High School. We shall make sure the child goes there and is given a scholarship.

"We want a [placement] system that will pick the best brains from Kiandutu slums in Thika and place them in Alliance High School," the CS stated in April.

On Tuesday, he confirmed that 53,000 KCPE 2020 candidates applied for the Elimu Scholarship Programme under the Ministry of Education.

Currently, the capacity in the 103 National Schools in Kenya stands at 30,000 while the 531 Extra-County Schools have a capacity of 123,399.

The 1,032 County Schools and 7,325 Sub-county Schools have a capacity of 142,358 and 685,590 respectively.