Grades at any cost

Whenever Ms Lily Rotich looks at the mound under which lies her daughter Mercy Chebet, she sees the folly of our education system.

It all began two days after Education Minister Sam Ongeri performed his annual ritual of announcing the best and poor performers in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exams.

“There were no indications that she would take her life,” recalls a distraught Lily, still yet to come to terms with the loss of her daughter.

Mercy, 14, hadn’t strayed into the world of adult games and exposed her family to ridicule and dishonour. She hadn’t broken any law of the land.

So, what sin did the Ketitui Primary School pupil from Kericho County commit?

She scored 145 marks out of a possible 500 in KCPE.

“I don’t know why she waited until the exams were out,” her mother regrets.

Mother thought daughter was being cheeky when she threatened to kill herself rather than live with the results.

Half an hour later, Mercy was dangling on a sarong (leso) from their kitchen roof.

Mercy had been jovial when she left with her friends to check the results, but, in her mother’s words, gloom set in when she saw her grades.

On hearing that repeating exam classes was out, the world collapsed around her. And she reached for the leso.

A similar tragedy also struck in Kathiani, Machakos County.

Sylvia Wanjiku, 14, scored 303 marks (an average of 60.6 per cent), but her target had been 400.

Had that 60.6 per cent been a university grade, it would have been an Upper Second Class Honours, meaning she would have had a chance to pursue a masters degree and then a PhD.

Local police boss Richard Kerich later told journalists that the ambitious girl’s suicide note read: “Dear Mum, I have let you down in this world without 400 marks.”

Ten days later, the grades-at-any-cost mentality claimed a third life when Tony Muiya from Kiamunyeki village in Nakuru County hanged himself inside his parent’s two-bedroom house on a Monday evening.

Tony was “unhappy” with a teacher for forcing him to repeat class. The lad, his mother said, had been forced to repeat Class Six because he had scored 218 points, 32 away from the 250 pass mark. Thirty two marks less and a life was lost.

And it’s not just pupils who are choosing this tragic path.