Gvt to start search for 200,000 missing Grade 7 learners

The government will conduct a mop up exercise to register about 200,000 learners who are yet to report to Junior Secondary Schools (JSS).

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu urged the Chiefs to work with the Ministry’s field officers to trace thousands of learners still unaccounted for two weeks after pupils reported to their respective schools.

“Transition to JSS is not as good as it should be because the number that is supposed to go to JSS is 1.2 million and so far, we had over 900,000 by Monday,” said the CS.

He made the remarks after addressing Kenya Association of Technical Training Association (KATTI) Principals and TVET County Directors on prudent management of institutions at the Kenya School of TVET in Nairobi.

“There are still about 200,000 students who have not been able to register to any JSS and that is why we are applying a multi-agency approach, where we are requesting the chiefs and their assistants to work with education officials on the ground to make sure every child gets into a junior secondary school,” he added.

Machogu made the remarks as he insisted that no learner should skip any class and affirmed that all their information at every level is well captured on National Education Management Information System (NEMIS).

“Information is captured on NEMIS such that the registration of students is done right from Grade One and each year we make sure we update that data so the people who were in Standard Seven last year, now in Class Eight, are properly captured on NEMIS such that any parent transferring his or her child to another school in Class Seven will not be accepted and it will not be captured in the NEMIS system,” the CS said.

He said that children should be allowed to go through the normal process because ‘education is not going anywhere’.

“Education is there for them all and they should pass through every level,” Machogu insisted.

The Ministry has already warned schools and parents against registering Grade Seven learners to sit the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE), saying action will be taken against those found culpable.

Any school found to have engaged in such malpractice is to be reported to the Ministry for action.

The Ministry also directed Regional, County and Sub County Directors of Education to liaise with officers from State Department for Citizen Services on issues of birth certificates issuance that is abnormal.

Some of the illegalities the directors are to look out for include falsification of school records, birth records and bio data of Grade Seven learners, attempts to change or obtain new birth certificates by parents to aid in the malpractice.

Other illegalities are generation of new Unique Personal Identification (UPI) for continuing learners, presenting Grade Seven as Class Eight learners and facilitating transfers of Grade Seven into other schools and presenting them as Class Eight transfers.

On the other hand, he said that Form One admission is well on course.

“We had given them up to February 13 and we will extend a few more days so the intake is still on but the number for Form One is so far impressive,” the CS said.