Barely a day after the Ministry of Education released the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) results, confusion has gripped parents across the country over the newly introduced grading system.
The unfamiliar 8-level grading scale has left many parents struggling to understand their children’s performance and what the grades actually signify.
This year, the Ministry moved away from the traditional A–E grading system, replacing it with a new structure in which performance levels are marked using abbreviations such as “EE”, sparking widespread concern and debate.
On Friday, December 12, parents flocked to schools nationwide seeking clarification after encountering the grade “EE” on their children’s report cards.
Many expressed frustration, saying the new format made it difficult to tell whether their children had performed exceptionally well or poorly.
Speaking to the press, some parents lamented that interpreting the results had become a major challenge.
“I checked my child’s results and saw ‘EE’, and I was completely confused. These new terms are difficult to understand. We were used to the traditional grading system,” said one concerned parent.
Under the new framework, each subject is graded out of a maximum of eight points. With nine learning areas assessed, a learner can score a total of up to 72 points.
Much of the confusion arises from how grades are presented, with some parents mistaking the “EE” label for the former Grade E, which traditionally indicated poor performance.
However, the new system categorises performance into four broad levels: exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, approaching expectations, and below expectations.
Learners who exceed expectations are graded as “EE1” (90–100 per cent), indicating excellent or exceptional performance, while “EE2” (75–89 per cent) signifies a very good performance.
Those who meet expectations receive “ME1” (58–74 per cent), which represents a good performance, or “ME2” (41–57 per cent), which reflects fair achievement.
Students who are approaching expectations are graded “AE1” (31–40 per cent), meaning they require improvement, or “AE2” (21–30 per cent), indicating below-average performance.
Learners who perform poorly fall under the “below expectations” category, with “BE1” (11–20 per cent) denoting well below average performance, while “BE2” (1–10 per cent) represents minimal achievement.
