The presidential working group on education reforms has recommended radical changes on how learners are graded so their strengths are considered.
The Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms (PWPER) has urged dramatic changes to the way the Kenya National Examinations Council(KNEC) grades learners.
The taskforce also made radical funding proposals, including centralising higher education sponsorship by counties and the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF).
The panel, which submitted its report to President William Ruto on Tuesday, recommended KNEC drops the current grading system for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam (KCSE).
The team recommends KNEC's computation of the KCSE exam mean score be based on Mathematics, English or Kiswahili, and five other subjects in which the learner performs fairly well.
Currently, the grading system for KCSE considers seven subjects including English and Kiswahili, Mathematics, two Science subjects and two other subjects.
The team said this computation disadvantages some learners whose best-performing subjects are not considered, if not within the cluster.
''It is worth noting that both English and Kiswahili measure the literacy level of a learner, while Mathematics and any Science subjects evaluate the numeracy aspects of the learner,'' the panel said.
The sweeping proposal will see students who do not do well in English still qualify for courses including Medicine, Law and Engineering.
The courses currently require higher grades in English without regard to performance in Kiswahili.
The move will also see learners who score well in Kiswahili proceed to study Education at the university level despite failing in English.
Over the recent past, universities had raised the cluster points for some courses, including education, with those seeking to study education required to have at least a C (Plain) in English.
However, under the fresh proposals, universities will consider either English or Kiswahili, while KNEC will also not consider both subjects while computing mean grades.
''The examinations are high-stake assessments with consequences to the learners based on their performance,'' the committee noted.
''Learners who fail to obtain quality grades in the examinations often drop out of school, leading to a high wastage of a youthful population.''
The taskforce also made a radical funding proposal including an overhaul of government sponsorship for higher education.
The panel wants the administration of sponsorship from the National Government Constituency Development Fund(NG-CDF) centralised.
The panel says the move will eliminate instances where students receive multiple funding from different constituency funds and county governments.
This means that, going forward, students may not be able to access simultaneous funding from both CDF and county governments.
''All other funding and sponsorship provided by the National Government Constituency Development Fund, County Government and other sponsors to be centrally coordinated to avoid multiple funding of the same student,'' the report read.
The panel said students will be eligible to apply for financial assistance including Government scholarships, loans and bursaries upon receiving an admission letter from institutions.
Under the proposed funding model for higher education, students will receive scholarships and loans based on Means Testing.
For university education, funding will be based on the actual cost of the programme with government scholarship incurring an average of 61 per cent.
Government loans will cater for an average of 35.5 per cent, with households set to contribute an average of 3.5 per cent.
Funding for TVET education will be purely student-centred and also include elements of the cost of the programme.
Students will get government scholarship at an average of 58 per cent while government loans will inject 32 per cent.
Households will contribute an average of 10 per cent.
The taskforce has provided the distribution of scholarships and loans to distinct categories of TVET students.
Students under the vulnerable category will get scholarships of up to 80 per cent, 20 per cent loans while households will not contribute anything.
For the extremely needy category, students will get scholarships of up to 70 per cent and loans of up to 30 per cent with households contributing nothing.
For the needy category, students will get scholarships of up to 50 per cent, loans of 30 per cent while households will contribute 20 per cent.
The less needy category will get scholarships of up to 32 per cent, loans of 48 per cent while households will contribute 20 per cent.
At the same time the panel has designed criteria for identification of students to be funded.
The model will be based on academic performance on KCSE exams and affirmative action that will look at marginalisation and disability issues.
Other factors that will be used to determine the funding level for students would be household income bands classified according to the monthly household incomes.
Households that earn Sh23,671 per month and below will fall under the extremely needy category while those between Sh23,672 and Sh70,000 will be under the needy category.
The less needy will involve families that earn between Sh70,001 to Sh200,000.
The other factor in categorisation would be the national priority areas for human capital development in the country.
Some of the current government's national priority areas include agriculture, animal health, climate change, medicine, environment,technology, engineering, applied sciences, nutrition and dietetics and the blue economy.
The Means Testing Instrument (MTI) will be used to scientifically determine the students’ level of need by assigning varied weights and scores based on eight parameters.
The parameters include checking the parent’s background to establish whether students are orphans, from single parents, both parents or sponsored by guardians.
Gender will also be among the parameters so as type of course with those on national priority areas would be execpcted to get more funding.
Previous school type will also be considered, with those from public schools expected to get more funding as opposed to those from private ones.
Household expenditure on education will also have a bearing, with families with more siblings in high school and tertiary institutions likely to get more allocations.
Others criteria would be family size and composition, age of parents and marginalisation.