Parents are facing a hard task together with students during admission to secondary schools due to a lack of the Unique Personal Identifiers (UPI) which the government outlined every student must have. The personal numbers come in handy for they pave the way for government funding to students in their respective schools. Addressing the press, Beatrice Lyambila, the St. Cecilia Girls High School principal in Misikhu, Webuye West sub county, said the UPIs have set up a stumbling block in the admission process. She cited an example where parents have been forced to contact their children’s former primary schools after turning up with admission letters without the UPI numbers. Earlier, Education CS Amina Mohamed had outlined that secondary school admission will be deemed legal only if it’s captured in the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS), a decision that locked out the well known trend of students receiving admission letters straight from the principals. “Schools must admit students only through Nemis, no school should violate the Ministry’s guidelines,” she stated. As a result, students need to be registered through Nemis through their primary schools and will in turn obtain the UPI, prior to secondary school admission.
On matters performance, the St Cecilia Girls High School principal noted a mean score improvement with 71 students from the school getting direct entry into universities and she hopes for better results this year. The school’s PTA chairman Mr. Nyongesa Watulo urged parents to be observant with the UPI numbers before admission to facilitate the benefits for the students. He further lauded the Bungoma Governor Wycliffe Wangamati for awarding scholarships to needy students from the County.
