Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has declared a "national mop-up" operation as the government scrambles to locate over 165,000 learners who have failed to report for Grade 10 admission.

Despite an 85% transition rate, the missing 15%—a staggering figure equivalent to the population of a small city—has set alarm bells ringing at Jogoo House. The CS has now turned to the National Government Administration Officers (NGAO), ordering chiefs and their assistants to hunt down the missing students village by village.

The "Missing" 15 Percent

"We are not just sitting in offices waiting for numbers," Ogamba fired during a heated interview on Citizen TV. "We have deployed chiefs to every household. We must know where these 165,000 children are. Are they pregnant? Are they working in quarries? Or are they simply stuck at home due to fees?"

The transition from Grade 9 to Grade 10, a pivot point in the new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) that introduces Senior School pathways, has been marred by logistical chaos. While the government boasts of 900,000 students settled, the situation in regions like Nyanza and the Coast is dire, with poverty cited as the primary barrier.

• Nyanza's Perfect Storm: The report card from Nyanza is particularly worrying. Administrators there are battling a "triple threat" of high poverty levels, teenage pregnancies, and deep-seated confusion among parents regarding the new STEM, Arts, and Sports pathways.
• The Deadline Ultimatum: The Ministry has extended the reporting deadline to January 21, but with a caveat: parents who continue to keep their children at home after the grace period will face arrest. "Ignorance is no longer a defense," Ogamba warned.

A System Under Stress

The Grade 10 transition is the litmus test for the entire CBC project. If the government fails to close this 15% gap, it risks creating a "lost generation" of dropouts at the very moment they are meant to specialize.

Critics argue that the government's door-to-door approach is a band-aid on a broken leg. With schools reporting congestion in STEM streams and empty desks in Arts classes, the structural flaws of the new system are beginning to show. For the missing 165,000, however, the debate is academic; their reality is a choice between a school desk and survival.