Students commence busy Kenyan academic calendar in 2022
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the school calendar and implementation of the CBC curriculum continues to be felt with students set to sit for up to five national examinations in 2022.
This as schools reopened for term three this week in a year fully packed with academic activities with parents required to buy new uniforms while others, especially those in private and boarding schools bracing for increased fees.
The crash academic calendar will have four terms.
The national exams will include for students in Grade 6, plus two sets of Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams for Standard 8, and Form 4 learners.
Students in primary and secondary returned for Term 3 of the school year – a 9 week period that will run from January 4 to March 4, 2022.
The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations will take place from March 7 – 10, 2022.
The students currently in Class 8 will be the second-last batch of learners under the 8-4-4 system to sit for KCPE.
Students currently in Form Four in secondary schools will sit for their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination between March 11 and April 1, 2022.
A fresh school year will then follow with Term 1 running from April 25 to July 1, 2022 – a 10-week period.
After a short break, schools will reopen for Term 2 from July 11 to September 16, another 10-week period.
Schools will then reopen for Term 3 from September 26 to November 25, a nine-week stretch. The second KCPE and KCPE examinations squeezed to fit in 2022 will then take place.
Primary school students currently in Class Seven will take on their KCPE exams from November 28 and December 1, 2022.
Notably, a new government will be in place with an election scheduled for August 2022.
Students currently in Form 3 in Secondary Schools will sit for their KCSE from December 1 to December 23, 2022.
The Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) pioneer class, currently at Grade 5, will also transition to Grade 6 in July and sit their first national assessment in November and December.
The exam will represent 40 percent of their test scores with 60 percent drawn from school-based assessments administered at grades Four, Five and Six.
In total, there will be five national examinations taking place in 2022. According to the CS George Magoha-led education ministry, all the exams have already been set.
The CS promised the country that although this is an election year, with a new government expected in September, the national examinations will be administered as scheduled.
“We hope that by the time we are retiring from government, the examinations will be ready and whoever takes up in the new government will be able to administer them as planned,” said Prof Magoha.
He added that the government has already paid national examination fees for all children and warned school heads against asking learners to pay exam fees.