KJSEA placement shocker: 59% qualified but thousands stuck in wrong pathways in CBC placement farce
Nearly half of the students who finished Grade 9 under Kenya’s Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) have been chucked into the really sought after Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) pathway as they get ready to join senior secondary school in January 2026 – a pretty big milestone.
Figures put out by the Ministry of Education show 49% of the lot managed to get a place in STEM, while 40% got placed into the Social Sciences path, and just 11% got shoehorned into Arts and Sports Science.
The Ministry’s Basic Education Principal Secretary Prof Julius Bitok says that 512,000 learners are going to STEM institutions, 420,000 to Social Sciences schools and 115,000 to Arts and Sports pathways. On top of that there are 83,000 learners with special needs getting placed into various schools.
All this marks a pretty historic moment as the first full CBC cohort – over 1.1 million strong – moves on to senior secondary under the new system.
It looks like placements varied across the four senior school clusters, and the biggest share went to lower-tier institutions.
Cluster One (formerly the best of the national schools with the best kit) took in 105,000 learners, Cluster Two (formerly the best of the extra-county) swallowed up 254,000, Cluster Three (formerly the county schools) enrolled 288,000 and Cluster Four (mostly sub-county day schools) got the biggest intake by a mile – 399,000.
Next Monday, 12th January 2026, is when learners need to turn up at their new schools.
Prof Bitok stressed that the whole system is based on merit and what the learner wants, and he says it’s guided by their performance in the Kenya Junior Secondary Education Assessment (KJSEA) and how many spaces are available.
“Look, the way we choose which learners go where is based on some very clear rules that take into account what they want, how they did in the KJSEA, and how many places there are in their preferred schools and subject combinations,” Prof Bitok said.
He also added “Each pathway has its own set of subjects, and learners are put into them based on how well they did in the relevant subjects and what specialisation and capacity the school has in those areas, and then finally we make sure the school has room for them and we use a formula to make sure we’re being fair across all the regions.”
The ministry also had this idea to promote fairness by using a modified formula – the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) one – which takes into account things like population (42% weighting), how learners do in the KJSEA (22%), how poor their area is (14%), how far they have to travel to get to school (13%), and how good the schools are (9%).
Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba was talking about how big of a deal this is at a recent university graduation ceremony. He says this is the first cohort of learners to be moving on to senior secondary under the CBC and they’ll be getting to university in 2029 with a whole new set of skills and expectations.
“These kids are going to turn up at universities with a whole different set of skills, expectations and a stronger grasp of how to apply what they know and think critically – it’s all thanks to the way they’ve been taught under the competency based curriculum,” Mr Ogamba said.
A reassuring message to parents from Prof Bitok – the man’s asking parents to take a deep breath and relax. He’s acknowledging a little window of time to sort everything out.
“Please, parents, don’t get too worked up just yet. We’re keeping the portal open for one week for admissions – so if you’ve had second thoughts or want to change your minds, you still have time to get the pathway your kid really wants. When you log in, you’ll see what schools are left & there’s an easy spot where you can apply through their junior school. Also notice that students will now be allowed to change their minds & choose a different pathway, maybe from STEM to the social sciences if that’s where their interests are.
To help with all this, the ministry is going to be putting up lists of schools that still have vacancies by pathway & cluster – so at least that part is a little bit more straightforward. Anyway, all admissions, public and private schools alike, are all going to go through the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) & there’ll be someone keeping tabs on how things are going on a daily basis.
This all comes after the KJSEA results came out a few weeks back & showed that STEM subjects turned out to be the popular choice among students, which isn’t a huge surprise when you think about the big push nationwide for science & tech skills.”
Also Read: Ministry unveils tough new rules for changing senior schools after KJSEA placements
KJSEA placement shocker: 59% qualified but thousands stuck in wrong pathways in CBC placement farce
