When the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment results were released this week, many parents expected the usual mix of relief and worry. Instead, they found themselves staring at report cards that seemed to speak a new language.
Across the country, families reported confusion over grades marked “EE”, part of a new assessment scale introduced by the Ministry of Education. By Friday morning, parents had begun turning up at schools, seeking help to make sense of what the letters meant for their children’s performance.
“I checked my child’s results and saw ‘EE’, and I was confused,” one parent said outside a Nairobi school. “We were used to the old grading system. Now it’s hard to tell if a child has done well or badly.”
The ministry has moved away from the long-standing A-to-E grading structure, replacing it with an eight-level scale aligned to Kenya’s competency-based curriculum. Each subject is scored out of eight points, with nine learning areas assessed. The highest possible total is 72.
Education officials say the change is meant to reflect how well learners meet specific skills, rather than rank them against one another. But for parents accustomed to clear letter grades, the shift has proved unsettling.
Much of the confusion centres on the label “EE”. Some parents assumed it stood for the old “E”, traditionally a sign of poor performance. In fact, under the new system, “EE” means “Exceeding Expectations”.
An “EE1” score reflects marks between 90 and 100 per cent, described as excellent or exceptional. “EE2” covers scores from 75 to 89 per cent, considered very good.
Below that are grades marked “ME”, meaning “Meeting Expectations”. “ME1” (58 to 74 per cent) indicates good performance, while “ME2” (41 to 57 per cent) suggests a fair outcome.
Students who fall short of expectations are graded “AE” — “Approaching Expectations”. An “AE1” score ranges from 31 to 40 per cent, while “AE2” covers 21 to 30 per cent. The lowest band, “BE” or “Below Expectations”, applies to learners who score under 20 per cent.
Teachers and school heads say the system is not new to them, but acknowledge that parents were not fully prepared. “The framework has been discussed in schools for some time,” one head teacher said. “But many parents are seeing it for the first time now, and that has caused anxiety.”
Education experts argue that the grading scale offers a fuller picture of a child’s strengths and gaps. Still, they agree that clearer communication is needed. Without it, a system designed to guide learning risks losing the trust of the families it is meant to serve.
For now, schools are fielding questions and holding meetings to explain the changes. As one parent put it, “We are not against reform. We just want to understand what our children’s results truly mean.”