Questions that refuse to go away concerning the dismal performance of students in 2016 exams

The KCSE examination results released late last year recorded unprecedented failures, with 85 per cent (or about 489,000) of the candidates unable to proceed to university.

There are fears that this trend may continue into the future.

In fact, without responding to the fears, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Science and Technology, Dr Fred Matiang’i, has indicated that he is shifting focus to universities, having been done with high schools.

The immediate explanation for these alarming results has been that past examinations were heavily influenced by cheating.

This could well be true. Indeed most Kenyans have been concerned about the corruption and lack of integrity in the Kenyan education system as a whole.

That is why we continue to applaud the CS’s decision to send home the Knec board.

However, there are questions that refuse to go away. Assuming that Dr Matiang’i and Knec board chairman George Magoha did indeed control corruption and past mismanagement of examinations, do the present KCSE results reflect a normal curve in the performance of our secondary school children? I have my doubts.

In any society, intelligence is normally distributed through what one might call a normal curve.

The lower level is bound to have group with D and below in any examination.

To have only 141 students from just a handful of schools scoring “As” while 33,399 score Es is abnormal and requires not a celebration but some serious reflection by education policy makers.

This is the first time we have had such a massive failure at the secondary school level since 1963.

Eliminating cheating, corruption and mismanagement alone cannot adequately explain the weird outcome in our national examination.

Analysing the current results, one realises that of the 141 straight As, the bulk, 86, came from Nairobi and Kiambu counties with the remaining 45 counties sharing 55 As.

SEAL LOOPHOLES

Does this mean that in the past, dating as far back as 1963, other schools got As mainly as a result of cheating?

If this is the case, then the ministry must dig deeper and ensure that the quality of teaching is spread fairly and evenly throughout Kenya, particularly in public schools.

Further, the measure of students to proceed to various levels of post-secondary education should not be measured simply by examinations but by some continuous assessment methods accompanied by a rigorous inspection system by the ministry of Education.

If our system worked properly, we could assume that the top performers will proceed to universities and enter various faculties in accordance with the pass marks while the medium performers seek opportunities in tertiary institutions.

The bottom 20-30 per cent will then go into the informal sector or join the large army of the unemployed. 

In our case, we have massive failures meaning that a large number of our students will head to the informal sector at best or be consigned to unemployment.

Is this good for our economy? I think not. Both the NARC and the Grand Coalition Governments laid a very ambitious plan for our economy.

Through Vision 2030, we expect to be a full-fledged middle income economy by the year 2030 which is 13 years away.

Will we have enough doctors, engineers, space scientists, physicists, psychologists, veterinary surgeons, linguists, green house farmers, by then if we go by 2016 KCSE results?

Are we preparing our children and our country to compete with the rest of the world with these kinds of results? Some comparison will suffice.

One engineer in China serves 300 citizens.

In South Africa, the ratio is one engineer to 500 people. In Kenya, one engineer serves more than 2,500 people.

There are 0.14 physicians in Kenya for every 1,000 citizens which compares miserably with 5.91 physicians for every 1,000 citizens in Cuba for instance.

Our education system must close these gaps if we are to achieve Vision 2030 and compete globally.

The KCSE results we are celebrating show that we are failing.

Among the Organisation of Economic Corporation and Development (OECD) countries, transition rate to university is estimated at 58 per cent.

This means that on average, more than half the candidates in these countries go from high school to university every year.

NO ARRESTS

In Germany, for instance, the average transition rate from high school to university is over 70 per cent.

In Korea it is 70 per cent, 52 per cent in Japan and 60 per cent in the US.

Here at home, the Jubilee Government wants us to celebrate that only 15 per cent of the KCSE candidates, which translates into just about 6 per cent of the children who joined class one 12 years ago, will go to university.

We have noted with concern the following with regard to 2016 KCSE results:

(a) Seeming lack of moderation of results: Dr Matiang’i stated as much: we set up a system where results were transmitted in real time.

It meant that immediately the last paper was marked, you could actually receive your results.” 

We thank the CS for the efficiency with which the results flowed.

But that should be accompanied by equally real time information on “what next”, not just for those going to university but for those who did not make it.

(b) Large number of E grades: Prof George Magoha, the Chair of the Kenya National Examinations Council, was quoted as saying “Kenyans must stop this obsession with As ...” 

If indeed it was the objective of the Council to minimise “As”, the country needs an explanation for the Es.

It appears the examination was designed to achieve something else other than evaluating Kenyan learners along some normal performance curve.

Kenyans need to know the current philosophy of the ministry of Education on grading of candidates.

(c) Addressing mass cheating: Cheating in examinations is an abomination that pupils, teachers, parents and public officials should not engage in at all. 

I continue to applaud the tough measures Dr Matiang’i and Prof Magoha have taken to deal with the offenders.

But we need to see the culprits in the massive cheating that is being addressed.

Why has no one been arrested and/or charged in court?

SUGGESTIONS

Are we simply going to be contented with publishing our children who in any case are the victims of this rot?

What happened to the Knec officials, teachers, policemen who were selling exams?

(d) Lowest ever transition rate: the Jubilee Government wants Kenyans to believe that out of the over 577,000 students who sat KCSE exam in 2016, only 15 per cent had the brains to take up university courses in Kenya.

This is where we were as a nation almost 30 years ago.

How does the government explain this reversal or do we just celebrate that it has taken them 30 years back?

Something has gone terribly wrong and we need to get to the bottom of it.

I, therefore, propose the following steps be taken immediately to remedy the situation:

(a) A commission of inquiry is formed to audit the 2016 KCSE examination results.

(b) Disciplinary action is taken against those who are culpable in perpetrating this mass failure.

The writer is Cord co-principal.