Teachers alarmed by slipping grades

Public school heads are alarmed at the sustained slide in academic standards that was heavily exposed by this year’s Standard Eight exam results. The Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association has demanded an immediate review of the Form One admission criteria after the results showed a massive drop in performance in public institutions.

“We have recorded a consistent drop in performance by public school candidates since the free primary education programme started six years ago yet no one talks about it,” said association chairman Joseph Karuga. Mr Karuga said the association will be asking Education minister Sam Ongeri to provide a method of admission to secondary schools that does not disadvantage public school candidates.

Prof Ongeri has fixed January 8 as the selection date for national schools, which are expected to admit 3,000 learners. Mr Karuga said the function will also be used to discuss issues facing the education sector, including the free learning programme whose high enrolment has lowered the quality of learning in the face of a biting teacher shortage.

The official, whose association comprises 18,000 schools, said it was unfair to keep quite when pupils in public schools were increasingly getting locked out of good high schools for reasons beyond their control. He spoke as a Nation analysis of the results established that former public school exam giants were posting hardly any candidate in the top 100 lists.

Sustained decline

The analysis over the past six years showed that there was a sustained decline in performance in public schools since the free learning programme was introduced in 2003. With the teacher shortage in schools becoming worse by the year, performance of once exam giants like Utawala Academy and Olympic Primary School in Nairobi have almost disappeared from the top ranks.

This year, the top candidate at Olympic had 417 marks, 21 less than the country’s top pupil who had 438. There were candidates who scored less than 200 marks out of the total 500 in the Kibera-based school that was the envy of many just over five years ago. Though schools are not ranked according to the mean performance nowadays, the number of candidates they post on the top 100 candidates provides a pointer on the likely performance of their classes.

Since the introduction of the free primary education, schools that used to dominate top positions have headed to the academic wilderness. Instead private schools, many of which are well equipped and well staffed take up the top slots. Mr Karuga agreed with the Nation findings and said the trend frustrated teachers in the public school.