Knec report reveals subject areas where KCPE candidates fail

A report by the national examiner has revealed areas in subjects where Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination candidates fail.

The Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) KCPE Examinations School-Specific Report shows that most candidates failed in Social Studies, questions on the government, politics, people and relationships.

However, the candidates excelled in social relations and citizenship while science, weather and astronomy, water and soil were the worst performed questions.

“In religious studies, the candidates performed well on questions testing the Old Testament and Christian living but found it more difficult to tackle those on the African traditional heritage and rites of passage,” states the report.

Each of the 26,000 schools have since received individual reports on their performance in national examinations.

COGNITIVE SKILLS

The Knec report also shows how candidates fared in terms of cognitive skills, including on questions that test pupils’ knowledge, application, evaluation, comprehension and synthesis.

According to the council, the report will enable educators and school managers to know the school academic performance trends since 2013.

“This will enable them to plan on how to improve on learning outcomes,” the report says.

Knec acting chief executive Mercy Karogo said the report would enable the school management to identify the strengths for the schools and areas for improvement.

“It will also help the school administration to identify performance by subjects and pupils’ misconceptions in each subject content area,” added Ms Karogo.

COMPARE GRADES

From the analysis, each school will also compare its academic performance to the national performance through the subject and overall mean grades provided.

According to Knec researcher and head of National Assessment Centre Asumpta Mateo, quality assurance personnel will use school’s academic performance data alongside teaching and learning experiences to hold the school management to account in terms of academic performance.

Dr Mateo said: “We expect that the analysis of the results will guide schools in setting performance targets at both classroom and school levels.”

The KCPE school specific analysis reports for the schools have been posted on the Knec website (www.knec.ac.ke).

Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang asked all teachers to study the reports and fix the gaps that exist in performance in national examinations.

PREFORMING WELL

Dr Kipsang says the reports will show schools where candidates have not been performing well and help them address those areas.

The reports show the subject mean scores of each school besides indicating how they compare with national averages.

The documents also show the misconceptions that candidates have on specific topics, where they perform poorly.

Additionally, the reports recommend the areas where teachers can focus on to the quality of learning and performance of the children.