PRESS STATEMENT FOR RELEASE OF THE 2022 KCSE EXAMINATION RESULTS BY THE CABINET SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, HON. EZEKIEL MACHOGU, CBS, AT THE KNEC MITIHANI HOUSE, DENNIS PRITT ROAD, NAIROBI, ON JANUARY 20, 2023

• Principal Secretaries: Belio Kipsang, Dr Esther Muhoria and Beatrice Inyangala;
• Chairman of the Education Committee of the National Assembly Julius Melly
• Chairman of the Education Committee of the Senate Joe Nyutu
• Teachers Service Commission CEO, Dr Nancy Macharia
• Chairperson, KNEC, Julius Nyabundi;
• CEO, KNEC, David Njengere;
• KNEC Council members;
• Members of the Press;
• Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning,

I thank you for assembling here this morning for this exercise of releasing the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Examination (KCSE) results. We have found it wise to release the results early to allow our 881,416 candidates who concluded the examinations on the eve of Christmas Day, on December 23, 2022, to join various higher learning institutions to pursue careers as the year 2023 begins.

This creditable achievement in the marking process wouldn’t have been possible were it not for the sacrifice and hard work of thousands of our heroic teachers, many of whom applied

brakes on their worthwhile festive season activities to report to the 35 marking centres. I wish to celebrate these teachers, and indeed the hundreds of security officers and Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) officers who put all hands on deck to ensure a speedy conclusion of the marking process.

The timely conclusion of the marking process is indeed a confirmation that the Council is always prepared to defy any challenge to ensure the exercise is not interrupted. I have in mind the hiccup that was recorded at one of the centres where a few examination officials threatened to derail the exercise. KNEC was however able to respond with unfettered precision

that ensured a seamless progression of the exercise. On this note, I wish to urge all professionals who are usually engaged in national exercises, like participating in the administration of national examinations, to put the interests of the nation first and look at the merits and demerits of engaging in certain activities that could otherwise plunge the lives of our youngsters into irredeemable turmoil.

Start of new 2023 academic calendar

Today marks the end of a two-month holiday for our basic education learners. On Monday, schools will open for the first term of the year, as we finally mark the start of our traditional

regular calendar year. On this, I wish to thank all stakeholders, including teachers and parents, who battled all the bottlenecks that were laid on our academic roads by the COVID-19. Thanks to God the Almighty, we have successfully regained our school terms. Undoubtedly, this recovery puts our education sector on a comfortable gradient upon which to deliver on the many reforms lined up under the Kenya Kwanza Education Charter.

Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms

The new wave of education reforms currently underway are hinged on the recommendations of the Presidential Working

Party on Education Reforms that was formed by His Excellency President William Samoei Ruto.

The foremost offshoot of the first interim report of the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms was the domiciling of the Junior Secondary School education in existing primary schools as directed by President William Ruto.

Since then, the Ministry has moved to provide interim guidelines on the Junior Secondary School education, including the announcement I made this week that Grade 7 learners will report to their respective schools on January 30th 2023.

Additionally, I also announced that the Government will spend Ksh.9.6 Billion on capitation grants to learners of Junior Secondary School for Term One and Term Two of 2023, with each of them receiving an individual capitation of Ksh.15,000 per year. In the next financial year, the Government will spend Sh18 Billion for the Junior Secondary School learners’ capitation grants. Further, to this, I now wish to state that of the Ksh.15,000 that will be released for each learner, Ksh.4,000 will be spent on development of infrastructure with the greatest priority being on laboratories.

Guidelines on the Junior Secondary School

Further to the guidelines I announced last week, I wish to announce that the President has this morning accepted the ministry’s interim guidelines, including the following:

• The Board of Management (BoM) of a primary school that domiciles the Junior Secondary School will constitute a special Sub-Committee to spearhead the management of education and resources of the school. The Head of the primary school that domiciles the Junior Secondary School will serve as Secretary while the Chairperson will be a member of the Committee.

• All private Junior Secondary Schools will establish and operationalise BoMs, Boards of Directors or Boards of Trustees, in accordance with Section 52 (a) of the Basic Education Act (2013).
• A public Junior Secondary School will be headed by the head teachers of the public primary school that domiciles it during the interim period of the transition ending December 30, 2023.

• The Ministry of Education has re-engineered the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) in readiness for enhancement management of education

Registration of learners in NEMIS will form the basis for disbursement of funds to public Junior Secondary School.

• Text books and hard copies of the Grade 7 Curriculum Designs will be made available for all schools.

• KNEC will provide guidelines on the conduct of assessments at the Junior Secondary School.

• The infrastructure and resources of existing primary schools will be utilised by the respective domiciled Junior Secondary

School in the interim one year of transition. This applies to Special Needs Junior Secondary School as well.

• The Ministry of Education, through the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI), has developed a curriculum and training materials to build the capacity of education managers, (including Junior Secondary School Management Boards and school heads on governance and accountability in the leadership of JSS. The curriculum will also apply during the induction of the school heads on institutional and instructional leadership.

• Comprehensive guidelines will be issued to schools in a circular to be released by the Education Ministry next

These guidelines have been validated by stakeholders to spell out the general provisions to be adopted by institutions, organisations and stakeholders, in order to fast track operationalisation of Junior Secondary School across the one- year transitional period. The guidelines are interim while awaiting the full report of the Presidential Working party, which is expected in March 2023.

Multi-Agency Approach to Management of Examinations

I wish to thank my Cabinet colleagues Prof. Kithure Kindiki and Hon. Edwin Owalo who head the Ministries of Interior and Administration of National Government and ICT respectively for working with the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders to ensure success in the administration of the KCSE of 2022.

Career Trainings and Higher Education Opportunities

Most of you by now know that the President William Ruto is a firm believer of the TVET Education. I therefore wish to urge

all the stakeholders in this sector to rise up and be counted as we institute far reaching reforms in the sector as would be recommended by the Presidential Working Party.

My Principal Secretary for TVET and the semi-auton’omous agencies in my ministry including the Kenya National Qualification Authority (KNQA) and Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) must prepare to work to ensure that the agenda of TVET remains robust and able to spur the economy of Kenya through the production of well trained youth.

I therefore direct the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service to move with speed and establish the number of places available in our universities, colleges and TVET institutions to enable the immediate commencement of the placement exercise.

The Placement Service should also engage with higher education regulatory bodies – Commission for University Education (CUE) and the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TVETA) – to ensure that all learning institutions are prepared to enrol new students. This is in line with the Ministry of Education’s goal of providing fair and

balanced access to quality and relevant higher education and

training and the Government’s policy of 100% transition.

I also wish to announce that the Government is keen to ensure that the credibility and authenticity of qualifications and certificates that we get from our education and training institutions remains of high quality. To that end, we have developed a system for articulation, classification, registration, accreditation and quality assurance of national qualifications. I hereby direct the Kenya National Qualifications Authority to ensure that the National Qualifications Framework is fully implemented as this will enhance the quality, relevance and

authenticity of qualifications, not just locally but globally. This will also promote portability of our qualifications and mobility of labour.

Finally on this point, I declare that all the candidates who sat the KCSE Examination in 2022 have ready avenues to progress to other levels of education as we seek to leave no learner behind in career development. All these candidates have a destiny and the Government is determined to clear the path for them to reach that destiny.

FOCUS ON THE 2022 KCSE EXAMINATION CANDIDATURE

As I have already stated, 881,416 candidates sat the 2022 KCSE Examination compared with 826,807 candidates in 2021. This represented an increase of 54,609 candidates (6.60%).

Of the total number of candidates that sat the 2022 KCSE Examination, 443,644 were male while 437,772 were female, representing 50.33% and 49.67% of the total candidature respectively. This statistic means the country has achieved gender parity, in much the same way as we have done at the primary school level.

Fourteen counties had more male than female candidates in the 2022 KCSE examination compared to 17 counties in 2021. These were: Mombasa, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu, Turkana, Samburu, West Pokot, Kajiado, Narok, Homabay, Migori, Garissa, Wajir and Mandera.

Seven counties with high gender disparity in favour of female candidates during the 2022 KCSE examination included Kirinyaga, Kiambu, Kitui, Meru, Tharaka Nithi, Vihiga and Kisumu.

SUBJECT PERFORMANCE IN 2022 KCSE EXAMINATION

In the 2022 KCSE Examination, 17 subjects recorded a significant improvement in performance, compared with 11 subjects that recorded a significant improvement in performance in 2021.

There was no significant change in performance in four of the subjects offered during the 2022 KCSE Examination.

OVERALL GRADE ACHIEVEMENT IN THE 2022 KCSE

There were 1,146 (0.13%) candidates who obtained an overall Grade A in the 2022 KCSE Examination compared with 1,138 (0.14%) candidates in 2021.

On the other hand, the number of candidates with minimum university entry qualification of Grade C+ and above has risen to 173,345 (19.03%) in the year 2022 KCSE Examination

compared to 145,776 (17.55%) in 2021.

The number of candidates with mean grade D+ and above in the 2022 KCSE Examination is 522,588 (59.14%) compared

with 442,251 (53.29%) in 2021.

Encouragingly, the number of candidates obtaining a mean grade of E in 2022 declined significantly to 30,822 (3.49%) despite the increase in candidature, compared with 46,151 (5.56%) in 2021. This clearly leads us to conclude that most of the candidates scored grades of higher quality.

Most significantly, all the remaining candidates are legible to join TVET institutions, Teacher Training Colleges, Medical

Training Colleges and other tertiary learning institutions for various courses.

Overall National Grade Summary for 2022

CANDIDATES WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

There were 190 (8.80%) candidates with special needs who obtained an overall grade C+ and above in 2022 KCSE examination.

ACCESSING OF THE 2022 KCSE EXAMINATION RESULTS

Candidates will collect their results from their respective examination centres. Individual candidates results can also be accessed by sending a candidate’s index number followed by the initials “KCSE” through a Short Message Service (SMS) to

20076. This service will be available immediately after this event.

It is now my humble duty and privilege to declare the 2022 KCSE Examination results officially released. I wish all candidates success in their future endeavours.

HON. EZEKIEL MACHOGU, CBS CABINET SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION.

FRIDAY, 20th JANUARY 2022