The Ministry of Education has warned politicians against politicising national school admissions, saying careless remarks on locality-based placement risk causing anxiety among learners and parents.<\/p>\n
\nSpeaking in Muranga on Tuesday, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba insisted that the placement of students must remain fair and merit-based, stressing that national schools should not be treated as tools for political gain.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe are sending a very strong warning to our leaders, who are saying national schools should only admit students from the locality where they come from. We must differentiate between the national school status of a school and issues relating to the development of the infrastructure of those schools using the CDF,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSome of the institutions we are talking about were not built by CDF. They\u2019ve been there for a very, very long time. CDF just came the other year, several years ago. So let us differentiate that, because it could send the wrong signal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOgamba\u2019s remarks come amid comments by Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP) leader Rigathi Gachagua, who has called for merit-based admission while also raising concerns over locality considerations in national school placement.<\/p>\n
\nGachagua said all learners who excel academically must be admitted on merit, while criticising the quota system introduced under devolution.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAll children in Kenya deserve equal treatment. National schools are very critical because they have a very developed infrastructure, and they attract the best among children. There must be fairness in the placement of children in national schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nHe insisted that he was not advocating for ethnic or geographic exclusion but for fairness in placement.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI have not insisted that children of a certain area must go to schools where those children are domiciled, no. Where the schools are domiciled, children from that area who qualify must be given an opportunity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\nCiting a specific case, Gachagua said, \u201cThere is a child in Thogoto who scored 71 out of 72 marks; Alliance is just a few metres, and the child had asked to be placed in Alliance, and the cluster was right, but the child was denied while students from other regions got an opportunity. These placements must be based on merit, and I am saying it is unfair to deny a child an opportunity to go to the school of their choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHowever, CS Ogamba condemned the remarks, insisting that learners are largely detached from political affiliations and urged leaders to avoid making statements that could negatively affect students or parents.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLet us desist from making statements that might have a very negative impact on our institutions, because our institutions are there to shape these learners, who are almost 11 million in the whole country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhen you look at these learners, they are not interested in our political alignments; they do not belong to political parties. They don\u2019t belong to any particular places or spaces. They come to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nHe further warned that politically charged statements could have serious psychological consequences for students during the placement exercise.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe want to encourage leaders, even as you try to get political mileage in your statements, try and do it elsewhere, not in the education sector, because the anxiety you create, which is unnecessary, affects not just the parents, but a lot of the students as well, and might even have serious implications for those. That\u2019s why we are saying, even as we are doing this placement exercise, we are alive to the fact that some students sometimes can even go into depression if they do not get the schools they want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\nGachagua\u2019s remarks have drawn both criticism and support, with several leaders backing his views, while others have voiced opposition.<\/p>\n
\nKakamega Senator Boni Khalwale supported Gachagua, saying the debate should focus on accountability.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cListening to Gachagua with sobriety, he actually raised a valid and not tribal point. I strongly believe national schools should reserve 30 per cent of admission slots for students from local communities,\u201d Khalwale said on X.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAs for the use of NG-CDF by MPs, and by extension, devolved funds by some governors from the former Northern Frontier Districts, let us not sugar-coat anything. Leadership choices matter. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nCity lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi also weighed in, saying, \u201cRigathi Gachagua is right when he raises questions about how public funds allocated to Northern Kenya have been utilised since devolution started in 2013. Gachagua is playing politics, but when he talks about leadership responsibility and outcomes, he is raising issues worth examining, and I support that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nUnited Opposition co-principal and Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka urged Kenyans to demand better leadership at the ballot.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOur country needs leaders who serve the people, not politicians who prioritise personal wealth, build roads to their homes, and leave citizens to suffer,\u201d he said during a burial in Machakos.<\/p>\n
\nIn response to parental complaints over placements, the Ministry of Education has extended the Grade 10 transfer deadline to January 16. CS Ogamba said the process is being managed through the Kenya Education Management Information System (KEMIS), an automated platform monitored by ICT officials.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe admissions are linked to the headquarters, with approvals being made across the board to ensure the process is seamless,\u201d Ogamba said.<\/p>\n
\nThe extension follows complaints that some learners were placed in senior schools far from home, including day schools in distant counties, or in schools perceived to be below their academic qualifications.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThose students who may want to transfer from one school to another are being allowed, and the necessary approvals are being made to facilitate that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe have given them until Friday to make the placement process as seamless as possible and ensure every learner is in their school of choice so learning can progress in two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOgamba said ministry officials worked over December to allow learners to transfer, in line with the government\u2019s 100 per cent transition policy.<\/p>\n
\nGrade 10 learners form the pioneer Competency-Based Education cohort, with 1,130,459 students nationwide. Kenya has 9,500 senior schools, categorised by academic pathways, accommodation, gender and special needs.<\/p>\n
\nOgamba also revealed the government is constructing 1,600 laboratories nationally to support science learning under CBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ministry of Education has warned politicians against politicising national school admissions, saying careless remarks on locality-based placement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[13373,13367,13372,1143,13368,13371,84,80,13370,13369],"class_list":{"0":"post-21424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-competency-based-education-pioneer-cohort","9":"tag-cs-ogamba-warns-politicians-against-politicising-national-school-admissions","10":"tag-devolution-and-school-infrastructure-accountability","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-grade-10-admissions","13":"tag-grade-10-transfer-deadline-extension","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-kenya","16":"tag-national-school-placement","17":"tag-school-admissions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}