KCPE exam results released

Slightly less than half of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidates who sat the examination in 2014 attained at least 250 out of 500 marks.

Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi, while officially releasing the results on Monday morning, said the performance was relatively the same as last year.

He said 436,814 students got more that 251 marks, representing 49.61 per cent of those who sat the exam, compared with 49.71 per cent last year.

More than 880,000 candidates sat the exam in 24,278 centres across the country this year, an increase from 2013, when 839,000 candidates took part in 23,819 centres.

NO RANKING

The candidates can access the results as soon as they are released by sending their index numbers through SMS to 22252.

They can also download their results by logging onto the Kenya National Examinations Council's website, www.knec.ac.ke, and keying in their index numbers.

Last month, the Education Ministry abolished the ranking of schools and candidates to reduce cut-throat competition and cheating in national examinations.

The new policy was aimed at ending unethical practices by teachers in the rush for top positions.

While releasing the results on Monday, Prof Kaimenyi defended the decision not to release any orders of performance ranking, saying there were more demerits of performance ranking that were benefits.

TEACHER AND STUDENT MORALE

The Cabinet secretary urged the media to respect the decision of the ministry, asking them not to do any ranking in a "kienyeji" way.

He said using the mean score alone did not accurately reflect the performance of a school as there are other factors that would have to be considered, including the facilities available.

Besides, he said, ranking affects the morale of teachers and students in schools that are deemed to be regularly performing poorly.

"Your self-esteem goes down. It kills innate talent and allows stigmatisation," Prof Kaimenyi said.

The CS also said ranking creates unfavourable competition as it was not fair to compare schools with distinct differences.

Many schools had even stopped teaching non-examinable subjects such as music and the arts as a result, he said.

He said the competition had given rise to unscrupulous practices including illegal tuition during weekends and holidays although it had been banned.

IRREGULARITIES

There were 1,702 cases of irregularities in the examination, representing 0.19 per cent of the 880,446 candidates, Prof Kaimenyi announced.

He noted that English and Kiswahili recorded the highest cases of irregularities, saying poor supervision and invigilation was to blame for most of the cases.