School fees remains unchanged, CS Ogamba says on Senior School transition

The government has assured parents that school fees will remain unchanged as the country prepares for the first full transition of learners into Senior School under the Competency-Based Education (CBE).

Education Cabinet Secretary Migos Ogamba on Thursday said the renaming of schools into clusters does not affect the cost of education.

“The school fees remain the same as it has always been. We have not changed it. There is no change; Alliance School is still Alliance High School, whether we call it category one or a national school. The fact that we have changed the name does not change the fees,” the CS said.

Basic Education Principal Secretary Dr Julius Bitok underscored that the placement process for the 1.13 million learners who sat the 2025 Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) is already underway, with all candidates having selected their preferred schools earlier in the year.

“All the 1.13 have been given the opportunity to select the 12 schools of choice; the selection has already been made. After the release of the results, the next thing is placement; to place students in schools they have selected,” he said.

“For us to be able to place the students equitably, we have adopted the CRF formula of revenue allocation to be able to distribute as fairly as possible students from across all counties in all four categories of school," Bitok explained.

"As you are aware, the formula takes care of the population, the size, poverty and other components. We have adopted the formula so that we are as fair as possible, such that a child in Northern Kenya or Western Kenya can get an opportunity to get a school in Nairobi or any other county."

The PS consequently noted that all learners should know their placement by next week, after which the Ministry will open a short revision window.

“By next week, all students will know where they have been placed, after which we shall have a 5-day window for revision if they want to revise just like the way KUCCPS gives opportunities to university students to revise their choices… the process will be seamless,” Bitok said.

He said the government expects 100% transition, noting the country currently has more than adequate capacity, adding that every learner is expected to know their Senior School by Christmas, ahead of reporting on January 12.

“Our expectation is 100% transition for every child to move to the next level since we have 1.1 million learners against 1.5 million declared positions in senior school. So we have 400,000 spaces extra,” he noted.

“We are hoping that by Christmas every learner will know which senior school they are joining and by 12th January we expect all these learners to report to school."

The KJSEA results were released on Thursday at the New Mitihani House in South C, Nairobi.