KNEC Reopens CBA Portal for KPSEA and KJSEA Candidates as Schools Get Fresh Window to Submit Missing SBA Scores
The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has extended the period for uploading School-Based Assessment (SBA) and project scores for the 2026 Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) candidates, giving Heads of Institutions up to 30th September 2026 to close the gaps in their learners’ records.
The announcement, issued in a circular addressed to all Heads of Institutions, comes as a relief to schools that missed earlier submission windows and risked having their candidates proceed to the national summative assessments with incomplete academic records.
In the statement, KNEC said the extension was meant to allow schools “to take advantage of this extension and ensure that all candidates’ SBA and project scores are duly uploaded within the revised deadline.”
The Council further directed that candidates who were absent during the assessment or project activities should have their status indicated as “AB,” a move meant to ensure accuracy and integrity in the records rather than leaving blank or unexplained gaps that could complicate scoring later.
Understanding the School-Based Assessment System
To appreciate the significance of this extension, it helps to understand how School-Based Assessment fits into the wider architecture of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), which Kenya adopted to replace the old 8-4-4 system.
Under CBC, learner assessment is no longer left entirely to a single high-stakes national examination sat at the end of a cycle.
Instead, KNEC has built a continuous assessment framework that runs throughout a learner’s basic education journey, captured through the online CBA (Competency-Based Assessment) portal.
Every year, schools administer School-Based Assessment projects and tests on behalf of KNEC. These assessments span from Grade 3 all the way to Grade 11, cutting across primary, junior school, and senior school. They are deliberately spread across two school terms, with each term serving a different assessment purpose.
In second term, learners undertake projects and practical assessments. In primary and junior schools, these practicals are concentrated in three key learning areas: Science and Technology, Agriculture and Nutrition, and Creative Arts and Sports.
These are subjects that lend themselves naturally to hands-on, practical evaluation, allowing learners to demonstrate competencies that a written paper alone cannot capture — for instance, a learner’s ability to plant and tend a crop, construct a simple device, or produce a piece of art.
By third term, the focus shifts to written tests. Here, learners sit examinations that assess the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of what they have covered during the year, complementing the practical work done earlier.
The Special Case of Grade 3 and the ILA
Grade 3 occupies a unique place in this system. It is the point at which learners are registered on the KNEC CBA portal for the very first time, formally entering the national assessment database.
In this grade, learners undertake what is known as the Integrated Learning Assessment (ILA), which falls under the broader Kenya Early Year Assessment (KEYA) framework.
Unlike the subject-specific assessments done in later grades, the ILA is deliberately integrated — it combines several learning areas into a single project or practical activity in second term, and similarly merges multiple learning areas into one written paper in third term.
The only exception to this integration is Mathematics, which is examined as a standalone paper even at this early stage, reflecting its foundational importance and the need to track numeracy competencies distinctly from other areas.
Because Grade 3 marks a learner’s first registration rather than a continuation of prior records, the SBA scores generated in this grade are not factored into the final cumulative score at the end of the primary cycle.
They serve a formative and diagnostic purpose, helping teachers and the system understand where a learner stands as they begin to build toward the grades that will count.
How SBA Scores Accumulate Across the Grades
The structure of SBA differs slightly depending on the level of education, but the underlying logic is consistent: assessments are conducted in the grades leading up to a national summative examination, while the actual examination year itself is reserved purely for that summative test.
In primary school, SBA is conducted in Grades 3, 4, and 5. As explained, Grade 3 scores are not counted toward the final mark.
That leaves Grade 4 and Grade 5 as the two years whose SBA scores actually matter for the final outcome. Grade 6 is deliberately excluded from SBA activity because learners in that grade are preparing for and sitting KPSEA, the final national assessment at the primary level.
In junior school, the same pattern repeats itself at a different scale. SBA is conducted in Grade 7 and Grade 8, while Grade 9 is spared from SBA because learners at that level are focused on preparing for KJSEA, the summative assessment that closes out junior school.
In senior school, SBA is conducted in Grade 10 and Grade 11, while Grade 12 is excluded because learners in that final year are preparing for the Kenya Certificate of Basic Education (KCBE), which under the new curriculum serves as the culminating national examination marking the end of basic education.
The Weighting: How SBA and the Final Exam Combine
Perhaps the most consequential detail for schools and parents to understand is how these SBA scores translate into a learner’s final result. Each grade in which SBA is conducted contributes 15 percent of the final score at that level.
Since two grades count toward each summative assessment, the cumulative contribution from SBA works out to 30 percent, with the national examination itself accounting for the remaining 70 percent.
Using the primary level as an illustration: Grade 4 SBA, comprising both projects/practicals and written examinations, contributes 15 percent. Grade 5 SBA contributes another 15 percent.
Together, these two years account for 30 percent of the final score. The remaining 70 percent comes from KPSEA, the national summative assessment sat in Grade 6.
Combined, these figures add up to the full 100 percent that determines a learner’s final outcome at that level.
The same formula applies at the junior school level, where Grade 7 and Grade 8 SBA scores together make up 30 percent, with KJSEA contributing the remaining 70 percent.
It will similarly apply at the senior school level, where Grade 10 and Grade 11 SBA scores will combine with KCBE to produce the final result.
This weighting system underscores why the accurate and timely uploading of SBA scores is not a mere administrative formality — it is a substantive component of how a learner’s academic record is constructed.
A learner whose SBA scores are missing is, in effect, missing nearly a third of the marks that should make up their final result, regardless of how well they perform in the national examination itself.
Why Gaps Occur and Why They Matter
Despite the structured nature of this system, gaps in SBA records are not uncommon. Every year, KNEC opens a designated window during which schools are expected to score and upload learners’ SBA results to the online CBA platform.
For a variety of reasons — administrative bottlenecks, connectivity challenges, staff turnover, oversight, or simple delays in completing the scoring process — some schools fail to submit their data within that window.
Once the deadline closes, schools that have not submitted are typically locked out of the platform. This leaves their learners with gaps in their assessment records, gaps that, if left unresolved, would ultimately distort the final summative outcome.
Since SBA contributes a substantial 30 percent of the final score, a learner with missing SBA data cannot have a complete or accurate final result computed, even if they perform exceptionally well in KPSEA or KJSEA.
It is precisely this problem that the current KNEC circular seeks to address. Rather than allowing affected learners to be disadvantaged by administrative gaps that are, in many cases, no fault of their own, KNEC has opened a fresh window — this time with a firm deadline of 30th September 2026 — for schools to go back into the CBA portal and complete the missing entries.
Reporting Versus Certification Under CBC
It is worth noting how KNEC’s reporting structure differs from the examination culture many Kenyans grew up with. Under the previous 8-4-4 system, learners received a certificate at the end of both primary school (KCPE) and secondary school (KCSE).
Under the CBC structure, this has changed. KNEC now issues reports — not certificates — for both KPSEA and KJSEA, reflecting the formative, developmental philosophy underpinning the competency-based approach. It is only at the end of senior school, with KCBE, that KNEC issues an actual certificate, marking the formal conclusion of a learner’s basic education journey.
This distinction reinforces why accuracy at every stage matters. Even though KPSEA and KJSEA results are issued as reports rather than certificates, they remain consequential milestones that feed into a learner’s cumulative academic profile and inform decisions about progression, placement, and support needs going forward.
What the Extension Means for Heads of Institutions
For Heads of Institutions, KNEC’s directive is both a reprieve and a responsibility. The reprieve lies in the fact that schools which missed the original submission window now have a second chance to correct the record before the candidates sit their national assessments. The responsibility lies in ensuring that this opportunity is not squandered.
School heads are expected to go through their learners’ records methodically, cross-checking which candidates have complete SBA scores and which do not.
For any candidate who was genuinely absent during the second-term practicals or third-term written assessments, the correct course of action, per KNEC’s instructions, is not to leave the entry blank or attempt to estimate a score, but to explicitly mark the candidate’s status as “AB” (Absent).
This ensures that the national database reflects an accurate and honest picture of each learner’s assessment history, rather than data that has been fabricated or guessed at to fill a gap.
Schools are also being urged to treat this extension with urgency rather than complacency. A deadline that has already been extended once is unlikely to be extended indefinitely, and any candidates whose records remain incomplete after 30th September 2026 risk having flawed or incomplete final scores that could affect their overall academic outcomes and future placement.
Broader Implications for the CBC Assessment Framework
This development also offers a window into the operational challenges of running a nationwide, technology-dependent, continuous assessment system across thousands of schools with varying levels of infrastructure, internet connectivity, and administrative capacity.
The CBA portal represents a significant shift from the old model of a single end-of-cycle paper-based examination to a data-intensive system that requires consistent, accurate, and timely input from every school in the country, year after year, grade after grade.
Extensions such as this one are likely to remain a recurring feature of the transition period as KNEC, schools, and the Ministry of Education continue to refine the systems, capacity, and support structures needed to make continuous assessment work smoothly at scale.
For now, though, the immediate task facing Heads of Institutions is clear: audit their SBA records for KPSEA and KJSEA candidates, identify and fill any gaps, correctly flag genuinely absent learners, and ensure every score is uploaded to the KNEC CBA portal before the 30th September 2026 deadline lapses.
For parents and guardians, the extension is a reminder to engage with their children’s schools to confirm that all necessary SBA scores — covering both the second-term projects and practicals and the third-term written assessments across the relevant grades — have been properly captured and submitted.
Given that these scores make up nearly a third of a candidate’s final result, ensuring their completeness is just as important as preparing for the national examination itself.
