New KCSE champions spark ranking debate
A change in the line-up of top performing schools in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination has triggered discussion as headteachers call for a new measure of performance in national examinations. According to results released last week, several previously little-known schools posted candidates among the top 100 performers both nationally and regionally, raising questions over what went wrong at the former powerhouses.
Rift Valley’s Wei wei, Maasai High, Olkejuado High, Riobe Boys and Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nayhan were among previously obscure schools that posted candidates among the top 100 performers. The present system of ranking candidates is based on individual performance, at both the provincial and national level.
A school without a candidate on the top 100 list could still have had a good performance. Schools like Alliance Boys, which had four candidates on the national top 10 list and 46 among the top 100 performers in Central Province certainly did well.
Education minister Sam Ongeri said his ministry had begun an audit that might help establish the causes of poor performance in national exams by previously successful schools but said some performed well overall even if their candidates were not high-ranked.
The audit, which he termed “a normal post-mortem” of the KCSE exam results, will seek to explain why established schools were not performing as well as they have in the past. At least 15 schools that used to dominate the top slots in the KCSE and the defunct “O” and “A” level exams have fallen into academic oblivion.
But on Saturday, Kenya Secondary Schools Headteachers Association chairman Cleophas Tirop called for a review of the presentation of results, saying the system of ranking candidates rather than schools was misleading. “There are schools that are not posting candidates among the top lists of students yet overall they have performed well,” he said.
“This system may end up making schools to concentrate on a few students who will end up putting them in the limelight when exams are released.” He warned that many weak and average students would suffer if schools put more emphasis in aiding candidates who could end up in the national ranking.
Mr Tirop, whose school had a mean grade of 9.7 (B+), said the former system of ranking schools was better than the current one where only top candidates are ranked. “We need a system that provides emphasis on performance of all candidates in centres rather than individual candidates,” he said.
He called on the Education ministry to scrap the current system and implement one that could provide a more realistic picture acceptable to all schools. Indirectly speaking in favour of the former system of ranking schools, Mr Tirop said it was wrong to gauge schools based on a sample of the best 100 candidates when 330,000 candidates sat the examinations.
He said some exceptional students from district and provincial schools had the ability to emerge best in the country even when majority of the candidates performed poorly. Based on the ranking of individuals that began last year, the ranking of 2009 KCSE candidates also revealed the emergence of new exam giants who are giving long-time top performers a run for their money.
It was the first time the ministry provided a ranking of the top 10 candidates in each of the major subjects. A deeper analysis of the rankings both in the performance in subjects by individual schools and candidates indicates a trend where schools, some located in remote areas, are fighting for representation among the top schools.
Five Rift Valley schools – St Joseph’s, Kitale, St Anthony’s Kitale, Bahati Girls, Chemuswa High and Kapsabet Boys – posted candidates on top lists for the first time. Other smaller schools whose candidates featured among the top 100 nationally were Nyang’ori Secondary School, Weiwei, Olkejuado, St Anthony’s Boys and St Joseph’s Boys.
At the Coast, privately school Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nayhan secondary posted a candidate among the top 100 nationally, then dominated the region taking six of the top 10 positions. Its dominance, coupled with that of The Aga Khan High school, underscored Mombasa’s success in placing two candidates among the top 10.
Other Coast schools that did well were Allidina Visram and little-known Ribe Boys. In Central Kenya, national schools including Mangu, Alliance, Loreto Girls, Limuru, and Alliance Girls still dominated. But Baricho High’s first student was ranked 16th nationally. In Eastern, a candidate from Muthale Girls school placed fifth in a ltop 10 ist dominated by Precious Blood, Kilungu, and Makueni Boys.
