EXPLAINER: How Grade 10 learners will be placed in senior schools under the new system

Kenya’s education system enters a defining phase this month as the first group of Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) learners prepares to transition to senior school.

According to a detailed schedule released by the Ministry of Education, learners who sat this year’s Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) will know their senior school placements before Christmas.

The early placement is part of the government’s strategy to ensure parents and guardians have enough time to prepare for the reopening on January 12, 2026, when the first cohort under the new Senior School structure officially reports.

The ministry is expected to begin the placement exercise this week, immediately after the KJSEA results are published.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba recently assured that his team is working “continuously and with urgency” to meet the Thursday deadline for releasing the results.

The placement and admission process will be fully digitised, with all letters issued through the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS).

Accessing the KJSEA results

More than 1.1 million learners sat for the KJSEA, marking one of the largest national assessments under CBC.

Once the results are released, parents will be able to access them through the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) portal using each learner’s unique assessment number.

For the first time, KNEC will apply a new eight-level scoring model to present learners’ performance.

This marks a departure from the four achievement levels, exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, approaching expectations, and below expectations, used since the rollout of the CBC.

Each of the four levels is now divided into two distinct bands, creating an eight-point scale intended to give families a clearer picture of the learner’s performance.

Under the new structure, a child rated as “exceeding expectations” in a subject will receive either a 7 or 8, while one who performed “below expectations” will receive a 1 or 2.

This change, KNEC says, aligns with international assessment standards and reduces anxiety around percentage-based grades.

KNEC CEO David Njeng’ere explained that the shift is designed to give parents and teachers finer insights into areas where a learner excels or needs support.

“We are not reporting percentages. Each learning area will have a score from one to eight,” he said. Njengere said parents will now be able to tell if a learner is strong in mathematics or English, or if they need reinforcement in subjects like creative arts or science.

The final score reported for each learner will combine several components: 20 percent from KPSEA results, another 20 percent from school-based formative assessments conducted in Grades 7 and 8, and 60 percent from the KJSEA administered last month.

Njeng’ere emphasised that this system prevents learners from being judged solely on one exam.

“We want to capture growth over time. A child’s ability should not be determined by a single assessment,” he said.

How senior school placement will work

The Ministry of Education has published detailed guidelines outlining how learners will be placed in senior schools offering the three pathways, STEM, social sciences, and arts and sports sciences.

Placement will be done electronically, and the ministry has introduced performance-based priority slots at boarding schools.

According to the placement framework:

In every sub-county, the top six boys and six girls in each STEM track will automatically secure their preferred boarding schools.

For the social sciences track, the top three boys and three girls per sub-county will be placed in the boarding schools they selected.

In the arts and sports science track, the top two learners per gender in each sub-county will also gain entry into their school of choice.

Beyond these priority categories, the rest of the learners will be placed based on their performance, available spaces, and the choices they made earlier in the year.

Cluster 1 boarding schools, formerly the national schools under the 8-4-4 system, will offer all three pathways. Most day schools, however, will offer only two pathways depending on staffing and infrastructure.

During selection, each learner chose 12 senior schools: nine boarding schools (three within their home county and six from outside the county) and three day schools within their sub-county.

Some institutions, such as Starehe Boys Centre, will continue using their own pre-selection procedures, and the ministry will incorporate their admissions into NEMIS.

Admission and transfers strictly controlled

To improve accountability, all Grade 10 admissions will now go through NEMIS.

Principals will not be allowed to register a learner before they have physically reported to school. The ministry will monitor daily reporting across all public and private institutions to ensure accurate enrolment records.

Requests for transfers will be tightly controlled. Any learner wishing to change their placement must channel the request through their junior school at least two weeks before the reporting date. Priority will be given to candidates who had earlier selected the school they are seeking to transfer to.

Approval will depend entirely on the senior school’s available capacity.

If a transfer is approved, joining instructions will be accessed online.

Schools will not issue printed letters for replacement cases, and transfer decisions will be final and irreversible.

Parents have been urged to guide learners on career pathways.

They have been told to use KJSEA results as a basis for deeper conversations about career pathways.