Private schools to discuss Form One issue on Monday

FRIDAY, 06 JANUARY 2012 00:09 BY HENRY WANYAMA

PRIVATE primary schools meet on Monday to deliberate on the controversy surrounding this year's Form One selection. It is expected that by Monday next week the ministry of Education would have decided on the format to be used in the Form One selection especially to the coveted 18 national schools. There is, however, an additional 30 secondary schools expected to create an extra 6,000 Form One vacancies. The selection will be launched on January 13. 

The Kenya Private Schools Association secretary general, John Mwai yesterday said that the meeting's agenda will dwell on a likely discrimination on private schools children supposed to join Form One. The meeting will take place in Nairobi. County representatives from all the 47 counties will be in attendance. The Ministry of Education is currently locked in closed-door meetings to deliberate on possible ways to satisfy both public and private primary schools which had KCPE candidates.

Last year the bulk of the places in national schools were reserved for students from public schools despite the fact that private schools candidates performed better. Out the 4,517 Form One vacancies in the 18 national schools, 3,293 went to public schools. The other 1,224 places went to private schools students.

Education minister Sam Ongeri said the decision was based on the constitution's emphasis on equity, fairness, unity and national cohesion.There are suggestions to have national schools select 75 percent of students from outside their county while others prefer that counties' population be used to distribute national schools vacancies The private schools' meeting will also discuss a new proposal to extend terms calendar.