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At least 25 students who did not sit for last year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams in Homa Bay Sub-county will be enrolled in Form One, the Ministry of Education official has said.

The learners will be admitted to secondary schools based on their earlier performance at primary school.
Sub-county Education Director Ziada Osano said they will check on the marks that each learner got in primary school before they are sent to Form One at various secondary schools.

“The Ministry released a circular guiding placement of students who did not sit KCPE last year. They will join secondary school based on the marks they were getting while in primary school,” Osano said.

In the circular, the Ministry of Education said the students after transiting to secondary school will do another test while in Form Three before moving to Form Four.

National exams

Among the learners who will join secondary school without doing KCPE is a female learner from a school in Homa Bay who was in class throughout the year but failed to do the national exams after allegedly going into hiding during exams.

The girl is reported to have been attending classes until the final day.
But during the three days when students were sitting their exams, she is alleged to have been hiding in the toilet.

The father of the child girl said he knew that her daughter did the national exams. According to him, his daughter was in school like any other learner.

“I gave her money to cater for her meals during the exams period but I am surprised that she did not sit for the test,” the father said.

Osano said other cases of learners failing to do the exams stemmed from domestic wrangles.
“All of them will be placed in Form One because the government education policy gives all learners an opportunity to join secondary school,” he added.

Meanwhile, education officials in collaboration with their security counterparts in Nyanza region have embarked on an aggressive drive to mop up hundreds of students who are yet to join form one.

In Homa Bay County, out of the 42,408 students who sat for last year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams in the county nearly 31,813 have been admitted to various secondary schools.

County Commissioner Moses Lilan said more than 10,000 pupils are yet to take up their form-one slots in secondary schools in the county despite the government’s efforts to ensure 100 percent transition.