How KCSE 2024 Will Be Graded

The 2024 edition of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination concluded more than a month ago in November, and candidates are expecting to receive their results early next year, in January, as confirmed by Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba.

If you are among the 965,501 students who sat for the KCSE 2024, I am sure you would like to know how your final results will be graded after the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) announced that they will be implementing a new grading system to increase the number of candidates qualifying for higher education.

Well, the new grading system is straightforward if you managed to complete the challenging exams. KNEC, the body responsible for conducting national examinations and processing the results, will rank the seven best-performed subjects to determine the overall grade for each student.

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Of the seven subjects that will be graded, the two that you scored highest in will be selected first from the three compulsory subjects: Maths, English, and Kiswahili. Mathematics will be taken automatically, and then one that is your highest-performing of the two languages will be chosen.

KNEC will then move on to select the remaining five subjects, again based on your highest scores. These subjects can include Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History & Government, Geography, CRE, IRE, Hindu Religious Education, and optional subjects like Art & Design, Home Science, and Woodwork, depending on your selections in the KCSE assessments.

However, you should note that the individual grading scales for each subject will vary, as expected in every KCSE exam, based on performance and other factors known best to KNEC. Nevertheless, the aggregate points (AGPT), which indicate the total number of grade points based on the seven subjects, will remain consistent. The grading scale, from A to E, is as follows:

• 81 to 84 points: A
• 74 to 80 points: A-
• 67 to 73 points: B+
• 60 to 66 points: B
• 53 to 59 points: B-
• 46 to 52 points: C+
• 39 to 45 points: C
• 32 to 38 points: C-
• 25 to 31 points: D+
• 18 to 24 points: D
• 11 to 17 points: D-
• 07 to 10 points: E (the lowest)

For all the subjects, the standard description of grading indicated below will be used to calculate the total aggregate points in the examination;

The mean grade, which ranges from A to E (or 84 to 7), is based on the candidate’s best-performed seven subjects, as per KNEC regulations.

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