Kenya’s Ministry of Education has introduced an AI-powered digital school placement system to ensure fair and equitable transition for Grade 9 learners under the CBC system.
Kenya’s education sector has entered a new digital era with the launch of a Digital School Allocation System, designed to guarantee equity and fairness in the first-ever transition of Grade Nine learners to senior school under the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
According to Basic Education Principal Secretary Prof Julius Bitok, the digital platform will rely on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to distribute learners across schools based on their performance in the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA), which begins Monday.
The new model ensures that at least one learner from each of the 47 counties will join a Cluster One (national) school, promoting national cohesion and equal opportunity. Cluster One schools, which include top institutions like Mang’u High School and Alliance High School, will offer all three learning pathways—STEM, Arts & Sports, and Social Sciences—thanks to their advanced infrastructure.
Prof Bitok emphasized that the system will help a learner from Mandera to join a school in Kisumu or a student from Mombasa to study in Nairobi, breaking geographical barriers in education.
The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) will use a blend of KPSEA (20%), Grades 7 & 8 assessments (20%), and KJSEA results (60%) to determine placement.
With 2.4 million available Grade 10 spaces against 1.13 million learners, the government guarantees that every student will have a school to join
