The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) has appealed to parents to confirm the registration status of their children set to write the different national examinations in 2026.

Speaking during the release of the 2025 KCSE Examination results in Eldoret on Friday, January 9, 2026, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) David Njegere stressed the gravity of not complying with the directive, which he described as a major challenge to the examination council.

He urged parents and guardians to keenly follow up on the matter by counter-checking with the board on the status of their children’s registration and avoid late hiccups.

Ascertain registration

“Our biggest challenge is always the registration of candidates. I wish to take this opportunity to invite every parent who has children entering grade six, grade 9 and Form Four this year to please take an interest and ensure their children are registered,” he posited.

“We have had parents calling us a month before the exam dates, saying their child has not been registered. This has caused us many problems. We therefore urge them to ensure the registration.”

Countercheck with portal

He added that the ministry has an open portal for the parents to ascertain the process.

“We are going to open the portal in February, running through to March for the exercise to check with the institution if one’s child is registered,” he stated.

We will also make an SMS platform available in April; when the children come back for the holidays, you can ascertain if your child has been registered for the national exams,” he added.

2025 exams numbers

For the 2025 exams, Njegere confirmed that a total of 993,226 candidates sat the 2025 KCSE examination in 10,765 secondary education-level institutions across the country for the exams that ran between October 21 and November 25, 2025.

Out of these, 492,019 were male, while 501,214 of the candidates were female. The candidates were tested in 30 subjects, using a total of 74 papers. For ease of administration, KNEC used 633 distribution centers (containers) that are installed countrywide for daily distribution of materials in the field.

He commended the 107,447 officials who facilitated the exams and the 30,980 examiners who marked scripts in 40 centres noting the support of government agencies in ensuring a smooth process.

The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and Kenya Junior Secondary Education Assessment (KJSEA) for Grade 9 learners are among the national assessment exams set to be held in the year.

2025 saw 1,130,669 Grade 9 learners write the inaugural KJSEA assessment under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), while 1,298,089 Grade 6 pupils completed the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA).