Private school owners have raised concerns over the new secondary school placement system unveiled by the Ministry of Education, saying that it is biased and skewed in favour of public school students.
The new selection formula replaced the previous model through which selection and placement was done twice. This allowed parents and candidates to select preferred schools during the second round also known as revision.
The Education Ministry will henceforth conduct only one selection and placement exercise, which experts argued would affect students who scored less than 350 marks. Most of these students find school slots during the second round of selection.
Members of the Private School Owners Association (PSOA) argued that this new system would dent the hopes of KCPE 2020 candidates from private schools as the institutions performed dismally than public schools.
Association members drawn from Kiambu and Thika added that they were already affected by the marking of exams that allegedly favoured public schools and it would be unfair to further discriminate against them in the Form One selection process.
The marking process, they claimed, was doctored owing to the fact that private school students went on with virtual classes during the Covid-19 pandemic after the government closed all schools from March 2020 to January 2021. Only 5 candidates from the academies made it to the top 15 with only one student from a private school making the top 10 list nationally.
"Those in the private sector should not be seen as competitors but as equal players in education, complementing the government in realizing its goals.
"We are appealing to the government to ensure fairness in the forthcoming Form One selections," Thika branch Chairperson Mary Kirika urged Education CS George Magoha.
The private school owners also wanted the ministry to explain how the 2020 KCPE exams was marked and also what criterion was used in the grading.
Magoha, while unveiling the new placement system, promised parents and education stakeholders that it would ensure all students get a fair chance in securing slots in prestigious national schools.
"We want a system that will pick the best brains from Kiandutu slums in Thika and take them to Alliance Girls High school," Magoha stated.
