Murimi Mutiga and Bernard Gitau @PeopleDailyKe Only 141 candidates who sat this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) ...
Murimi Mutiga and Bernard Gitau @PeopleDailyKe
Only 141 candidates who sat this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam managed to score grade A, a drastic drop from last year when the category had 2,636 candidates.
The significant fall in attainment of the top grade— the lowest since KCSE was introduced in 1989 under the 8-4-4 system— is attributed to stringent measures introduced into the conduct of national examinations by Education Cabinet secretary Fred Matiang’i that have reduced cheating to a negligible margin.
Scenes of celebration that erupt in compounds of schools that are traditional leaders in KCPE results were conspicuously missing as it emerged that many so-called giants scraped just a few A grades. One leading private school that had more than 200 A scores last year was cited by Matiang’i yesterday as having emerged with less than 10 this year.
Media teams that sought audience with the school administration were repelled at the gate, unlike last year when jubilation rocked the compound of the school. Three of the top schools last year had 400 A grades, but yesterday their combined total of the top grade was below 15.
Indeed, so few were the A scores that mainstream media houses that flagged television scrolls pleading for candidates with the top grade to avail themselves, had not managed to attract more than 30 by last night. The Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) did not rank the results, making it difficult to call the rare winners.
As was the case with the release of Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam results by Matiang’i on December 1, the CS’ short notice afternoon announcement in Mombasa yesterday, at Shimo la Tewa High School, caught the media and Kenyans by surprise.
It was the first time since the 1970s that the primary and secondary examinations had been released inside one month, according to Knec records. Even ministry and Knec insiders appeared to have been caught off-guard, given that the marking was only completed last week and it takes at least two months to have the compilation work done.
Matiang’i, who was flanked by Knec chairman George Magoha and other education officials had no apologies for the low score. Candidates are to collect their results from their respective examination centres while individual results were accessed by sending a candidate’s index number through a SMS to 22252.
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