Revealed: How your child will be placed in senior school

Details of how your child should select a learning pathway have emerged, some of which mirror the Form One selection as practised under the 8-4-4 education system.

The selection of subjects to study in senior secondary schools is the first step in a series of activities that will culminate into admission to the preferred pathway.

After subjects selection, learners will have an opportunity to sit aptitude tests, which will form a critical part of understanding their potentials.

School scores, based on results from the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) done at Grade Nine, the school-based assessment marks and the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) of Grade Six will form part of details that will be used to place the students to their pathways.

KJSEA will be marked out of 60 per cent while KPSEA and school assessments will each constitute 20 per cent.

Other factors to consider will be cluster weights, child's pathway choice, availability of slots and affirmative action.

Parents will be allowed to lodge complaints at the junior schools where their children sat the tests.

To kick start this process, teachers in JSS have now been instructed to assess Grade Nine learners to establish their strengths as the learners prepare to join senior secondary in January.

The Ministry of Education on Monday opened a portal that will allow the JSS finalists to choose senior schools to join and subjects to study.

A document seen by The Standard shows that Grade Nine learners will pick 12 schools—a mix of boarding and day schools. 

But unlike the 8-4-4 system where only examinations determined a student’s fate on where they join secondary school, the new model under Competency-Based Education (CBE) involves layers of assessments to find a student’s bearing.

Besides academic performance, the learners' will be placed based on their skills, talents and personality traits. The psychometric package by the Kenya National Examinations Council includes cognitive tests to measure reasoning and problem-solving, personality tests to understand behaviour patterns and preferences, and aptitude tests to assess potential in specific skill areas.

Results from these tests are used by teachers, school career counsellors and parents to help each student make informed choices.

The pathways include science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the social sciences and the arts and sports science.

Learners interested in becoming doctors, engineers, architects, or IT professionals will likely be directed toward the STEM pathway, where they will study subjects including advanced math, physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. 

Those who excel in languages or have an interest in business, law, or journalism will be better suited for the social sciences track, with subjects in this pathway including English, Kiswahili, foreign languages, business studies and history. 

For creative or athletic students, the arts and sports pathway offers a curriculum built around music, drama, film, fine arts and physical education.

But the biggest decider of where the student proceeds to senior school is KJSEA. Once the Grade Nine results are released, the learner will be placed in one of the 12 schools guided by two key criteria: subject pathway and school type and location. 

For the subject pathway, the learner must choose four schools aligned with their first choice of track and subject combination, four more for their second choice, and another four for their third choice. 

This ensures a balanced spread of options across different academic interests or strengths.

In addition to subject considerations, the selection must reflect a mix of boarding and day schools based on geographical location.

Out of the 12, nine must be boarding schools, of which three should be from the learner’s home county. The other three must be day schools within the learner’s sub-county.

At the same time, only five students from one JSS can join the same senior school.