Kenya: no date for 2026 KJSEA results or Grade 10 placement; 2025 results came 11 December

The Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) have not announced a date for the 2026 Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) results or for Grade 10 placement. The KJSEA exams were scheduled to end on Friday 30 October, and The Star reported 1,206,028 Grade 9 candidates this year. The results are used to place learners in Grade 10, the first year of senior school, and the Ministry makes the placements.

How placement ran last cycle is set out in a Ministry press statement dated 2 January 2026 and signed by Cabinet Secretary Julius Migos Ogamba. The dates below are from the last cycle. They are precedent, not a 2026 timetable.

The Kenyan news site Education News reported on 11 December 2025 that Ogamba had released the 2025 results. Learners could see them on the KNEC portal at kjsea.knec.ac.ke with the assessment number and any registered name. Parents could check a learner's selected school by sending the assessment number by SMS to 22263, at a cost of KSh 30. Placement results were released on 19 December 2025. The Kenyan news site Citizen Digital reported a Ministry statement of 21 December 2025 opening a seven-day review window from 23 December.

The Ministry statement of 2 January 2026 says the joining instructions for learners already placed were available on the placement portal, www.placement.education.go.ke, from 30 December 2025. Learners could apply again for a review of their placement from 6 to 9 January 2026. Parents, guardians and learners had to give "legitimate and verifiable grounds" for a placement to be reconsidered, the Ministry said.

The route for a review request, as the statement describes it:

1. The request starts at the learner's junior school or at the senior school the family wants.
2. The head of that institution submits it through the placement portal.
3. The Ministry processes it under protocols it has already issued.

On how learners are placed, the Nation wrote that a learner's pathway is determined by the analysis at the bottom of the results slip. Where a learner qualifies for more than one pathway, the learner's choices and interests are considered, the paper said, citing Ogamba. It quoted the then Basic Education Principal Secretary, Julius Bitok, as saying the Ministry had adopted the County Revenue Allocation formula to distribute learners fairly across senior schools.

Grade 9 learners were to choose pathways, subject combinations and senior schools between 24 August and 11 September 2026, under a Ministry circular that the Kenyan news site Kenyans.co.ke obtained and reported on 31 July 2026.

On money, the 2 January 2026 statement says a circular of the same date confirmed that fees payable by learners in senior schools remained unchanged and that the Government would continue to pay capitation of KSh 22,244 per learner per year. School heads were told not to impose extra levies or fees, and the Ministry said it would deal firmly with verified cases of misuse of funds or extra levies.

Term One 2026 opened on Monday 5 January 2026, a week before Grade 10 reporting day.