The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has revealed that the Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) tools on the KNEC portal. Schools will then access and administer the CBA tools from the 31st of January this year.
The assessment tests will involve Grades 3, 4 and 5 and will involve written tests that KNEC will provide.
The three grades already did their practicals and project-based assessments last term which were administered between the 29th of October and 10th of December 2021.
Schools were required to administer, score and then upload scores to the KNEC portal by the 17th of December 2021.
KNEC released a circular that said that it was going to upload Monitoring Learners Progress (MLP) assessment tools for Grades 3 and the Foundation level for Special Needs Education (SNE).
The examiner then ordered schools to use locally available materials to carry out practicals and avoid burdening parents with unnecessary financial costs.
“Schools should obtain materials required for performing the assessment tasks from the surroundings of the school or use improvisation as much as possible,” said KNEC CEO David Njengere.
While schools were instructed to download assessment tools and instructions and then administer, score and then upload them on the KNEC portal, some did complain of not being able to beat the deadline for uploading scores because of the poor KNEC servers.
This made uploading outcomes on the KNEC portal a difficult task.
Now schools are set to administer assessment tests between the 31st January and 4th of February 2022 and then upload scores to the KNEC portal by the 21st of February 20222.
Assessment of grade 4 and 5 regular learners will be administered at the end of January.
- Mathematics
- English
- Social Studies
- Christian Religious Education (CRE)
- Islamic Religious Education (IRE)
- Hindu Religious Education (HRE)
- Physical and Health Education
- Science and Technology
- Agriculture
- Music
- Art and Craft
- Kiswahili
- Kenya Sign Language
In order to access the assessment portal, headteachers are required to log in to the CBA portal using their school KNEC centre code as the username and password.
School headteachers are also supposed to keep all records generated from the assessments.
David Njengere, KNEC CEO insisted that the Ministry of Education needs to have a periodical national assessment at the critical levels in order to get meaningful feedback which can, in turn, guide the making of necessary interventions.
According to Njengere, a national assessment centre has since been established at KNEC and has been conducting various formative national assessments.
The objectives of the assessment are to:
- Facilitate identification and nurturing of every learner’s potential
- Improve learning and instruction
- Facilitate selection of pathways and track in senior secondary schools
- Provide evidence as a way of accountability for teachers
- Provide assessment feedback to learners and other stakeholders.