KNEC to introduce first-ever junior school national examination in 2025

Junior school students will sit a national examination beginning in 2025 for the first time.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Education announced that the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) will administer a new summative national assessment at junior schools—the Kenya Junior Secondary Education Assessment (KJSEA).

Speaking during the release of the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations, KNEC Chief Executive Officer, David Njengere, confirmed the development, stating that the exams will be administered to over one million learners.

“As we are all aware, KNEC will be going through a phenomenal period in its history, where we will be administering a summative national assessment at Junior School for the first time, the KJSEA. The assessment will be administered to an estimated 1,145,585 learners who were in Grade 8 in 2024 and have now transitioned to Grade 9,” he said.

In addition, KNEC will be preparing to conduct the Kenya Pre-Vocational Level Education Assessment (KPVLEA) for an estimated 5,306 learners following the stage-based pathway.

To ensure readiness for these new assessments, KNEC carried out a pilot programme in June 2024, making necessary adjustments based on the feedback gathered.

One of the key outcomes was the development of sample papers, which the Council said are now available online via the KNEC CBA Portal for schools to use in preparing learners.

Njengere also announced that KNEC will distribute an online questionnaire to KJSEA candidates through their schools to gather feedback on their interests and personalities, which will help guide their placement.

Registration for the 2025 KJSEA candidates will begin on January 27, 2025, while the registration portals for KJSEA and KCSE examination candidates will open on February 17, 2025.

Njengere urged all centre managers to ensure candidates are registered correctly.

“I request all Centre managers to ensure that all their candidates are registered for the subjects that they are learning because there will be no provisions for erroneous registrations. Any candidates who will be erroneously registered in 2025 will have no alternative but to defer their examination to 2026,” he said.

The results released on Thursday pertain to the cohort that sat for their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams in March 2021, the first group affected by the disruption of the academic calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of candidates saw a 6.89 per cent increase from the 2023 cohort, which had 903,260 candidates.

A total of 103,125 professionals from the Teachers Service Commission, Ministry of Education, security officers, centre managers, supervisors, invigilators, and drivers were involved in the field administration of the KCSE exams.

KNEC also engaged 30,370 examiners across 40 centres to mark the examinations.

The assessment process began in January 2024, incorporating projects in subjects such as Agriculture, Art and Design, Woodwork, Metalwork, Building Construction, and Computer Studies.

While there was an improvement in the quality of registration data for the KCSE, 113 candidates in 88 examination centres were still registered for incorrect subjects, despite KNEC’s directive that KCSE papers would be personalised.

The KCSE examinations, which began on October 22, 2024, and concluded on November 22, 2024, marked the beginning of the final phase of the current KCSE administration, which will conclude in 2027.

The Ministry of Education has assured the public that certificates for all 2023 KCPE and KCSE candidates will be available by the end of February 2025.