The Ministry of Education has turned down 66,000 appeals from students seeking changes to their Grade 10 school placements, highlighting the challenges of high competition for a few popular institutions.
Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Bitok announced on Saturday, December 27, that the ministry has now processed 183,000 placement review requests.
“Out of the 183,000 that have been processed, 116,000 of them have been approved, and 66,000 of them have been declined. That is the position we have now,” said PS Bitok.
He explained that most of the declined requests came from students applying to the 20 top-performing schools, which cannot accommodate the overwhelming interest.
“The main reason why we are declining most of the requests is because of capacity. I have said more than 50,000 students are interested in 20 schools, which is impossible to deal with. These schools have a capacity of 500 students each,” PS Bitok clarified.
To give affected learners another opportunity, the ministry plans a second revision exercise early next month.
“We have noted that a number of public C1 schools in remote areas are not attracting many students. As a ministry, we are working to ensure all our C1 schools receive students across the country. We are thinking of opening up a second revision between January 6, 2026 and January 9 2026,” PS Bitok added.
The initial placement review window ran for seven days starting Tuesday, December 23. During this period, students were advised to approach their Grade 9 schools or Ministry offices at the Sub-County or County level to address any concerns.
“To address such concerns, the Ministry will open a seven-day review of senior school choices on Tuesday, December 23rd. Candidates are advised to contact their Grade 9 schools or the Ministry of Education Sub-County and County offices to take advantage of this window through their respective heads of institutions,” PS Bitok said.
The placement process relies on an automated system designed to ensure fairness, merit, and equity by matching students’ performance to available slots. Corrections such as gender errors were also handled during the review period.
PS Bitok acknowledged the dissatisfaction among some parents and students but pointed out that the high rejection rate is due to limited slots in popular schools and occasional miscommunication during the selection process.
