While President Uhuru Kenyatta and Cabinet Secretary for Education Ambassador Amina Mohamed are busy making promises to candidates of the 2018 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams, most schools are trying to figure out how all those candidates will be admitted the schools.
President Kenyatta and CS Amina Mohamed have in the past, repeatedly promised candidates that the government would ensure that they all get admission into secondary schools despite how many marks one scores. However, the two seem to have forgotten how congested schools in the country are.
Following the promise of admission for all candidates, headteachers of secondary schools will now have to put up with a huge number of students set to join their institutions in January next year even as the government implements the second phase of 100% transition.
However, according to a latest report by Auditor-General Edward Ouko most schools are already congested.
A good number of the 1,052,364 candidates whose Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination results were released on Monday will join an estimated 800,000 students who transited to secondary schools last year under the programme meaning that schools will be required to have adequate classrooms, desks, chairs, laboratories and teachers to provide quality education.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has previously requested the government to provide money to recruit 12,000 teachers annually to handle the high population. However, the commission was only allocated funds to recruit 7,000 teachers this year.
In a shocking report tabled before Parliament recently, Mr. Ouko disclosed that the 85 newly upgraded secondary schools did not have adequate dormitories, libraries and teachers, among other crucial infrastructure.
“To cope with the situation, some schools had introduced triple-decker beds in the dormitories contrary to the quality assurance standards that require beds to be either single or double-decker,” reads the report.
The report further states that some schools had no library services while others had converted classrooms into libraries.
On Monday, Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang assured school heads that they would receive capitation on time.
“We will ensure that schools have resources that they need for their activities before schools reopen,” said Dr. Kipsang.
Schools over the years have received capitation late and headteachers have had to protest so that the government would release the money. Next week, principals are expecting to receive the number of candidates that they will admit when the selection exercise starts early in December.
Most of the students will be eyeing elite national schools that continue to attract a huge number of applications. While very few students are willing to join the upgraded national schools, only candidates who scored 400 marks and above will be assured of a position in the national schools.
Do you think CS Amina Mohamed and President Kenyatta will fulfil their promise to the candidates or is it all a far-fetched dream?