High pupil numbers blamed for decline
PHOTO | FILE Mark Ouma head-teacher Arya Primary School in Kisumu municipality during an interview with Nation.
What you need to know:
- This is the question asked by most of the parents who were familiar with the performance of Arya Primary School in Nyanza.
- Out of 121 candidates in 2003, 20 scored 400 marks and above with six in the top ten nationally. However, the performance has been dropping drastically.
Where did the rain start beating us?
This is the question asked by most of the parents who were familiar with the performance of Arya Primary School in Nyanza.
The school was one of the top performers within the defunct Kisumu Municipality, and at times could produce best pupils nationally.
In 2003, the school performed exceptionally well with the best candidate getting 453 marks out of the possible 500, which is higher than the top candidate nationally in last year’s KCPE results.
Out of 121 candidates in 2003, 20 scored 400 marks and above with six in the top ten nationally. However, the performance has been dropping drastically.
In 2007 the mean grade was 347, while in 2012 it was 316 and 329 in last year’s exam—a bit better.
Mr Mark Ouma, who has been the headteacher for five years, attributes the decline to the school’s population, noting that “there is a bigger difference in the population of the pupils then and now.”
“When I joined the school, the number of the pupil’s was 800 unlike now when it has more than doubled with 1,950 pupils, with the same number of teachers and we are expected to compete with lesser populations in the private schools,” Mr Ouma said.
This year they registered 189 candidates for the KCPE exams unlike other years when they could register fewer, hence high mean grades, he said.
