KPSEA, KJSEA rehearsals get underway ahead of tests next week

The actual assessments for KPSEA and KJSEA will begin on Monday, October 26, 2026.Over 2.58 million Grade 6 and Grade 9 candidates will conduct rehearsals on Friday for the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA), respectively, marking the start of the second phase of the 2026 national examinations and assessments.

KCSE examinations are already underway, having started on Monday, October 19, with oral and practical tests, while written examinations will begin on Monday, November 2.

According to data released by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), the total number of registered candidates for the 2026 assessments is 2,586,491, comprising 1,380,463 KPSEA candidates and 1,206,028 KJSEA candidates.

With KCSE candidature standing at over 1.04 million, the overall national examination and assessment candidature for 2026 stands at a record 3.63 million.

The actual assessments for KPSEA and KJSEA will begin on Monday, October 26, 2026, and run until Wednesday, October 28, for KPSEA and Friday, October 30, for KJSEA.

During rehearsals, candidates will be briefed on the assessment rules and guidelines, the penalties for breaking them, and the need to confirm their registration details, including their names, school details and assessment numbers.

Candidates will also be shown how desks are arranged according to assessment numbers and will use the orientation to locate their assigned seats to avoid confusion during the actual assessments.

All question papers come pre-printed with each learner’s specific details rather than as general or unassigned papers. Candidates must confirm and sign these details on their assessment scripts before starting the tests.

Both KPSEA and KJSEA include multiple-choice questions answered on Optical Mark Reader (OMR) sheets. KNEC has introduced a new format for shading these forms.

Candidates will be guided on how to shade the ellipses fully rather than strike through them. A faint tick or a line through a bubble may not be read correctly by the marking machine, resulting in lost marks.

Sample OMR sheets are available on the Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) portal, where parents and teachers can download them and allow candidates to practise before Monday.

Candidates will also have time to ask questions about anything they do not understand, including the materials permitted or prohibited in the assessment room.

Familiarising themselves with these details beforehand helps ease anxiety, particularly among first-time candidates, by ensuring they understand what to expect and how to conduct themselves during the actual assessments.

KNEC will also use the rehearsals to confirm that every centre is properly prepared and that the officers overseeing the assessments understand their respective roles.

This year, KNEC has contracted over 340,000 professionals, including centre managers, supervisors, invigilators and script markers, to oversee all three national examinations and assessments.

Centre managers are in overall charge of examination centres, while supervisors oversee the conduct of assessments and brief invigilators before assigning them duties.

Invigilators are the officers stationed in examination rooms with candidates. They stand at the back of the room while assessments are in progress.

KPSEA and KJSEA invigilators must be serving primary or junior school teachers with at least three years of experience.

KJSEA supervisors must be serving secondary school teachers with at least a Diploma in Education, or primary or junior school teachers with three or more years of experience.

KNEC assigns one supervisor for every 200 candidates and one invigilator for every 20 candidates.

A centre hosting both KJSEA and KPSEA candidates is assigned a single supervisor for both assessments if the combined candidature is below 200.

To safeguard the integrity of the assessments, KNEC ensures that no supervisor or invigilator is posted to a school where they have served within the previous three years.