1 March 2008
editorial
Nairobi — Last year's Form Four candidates got their results on Thursday and obviously, they had mixed reactions. Top performers are celebrating together with their schools and parents, while those who flunked are gnashing their teeth.
The celebrations and disappointments that accompany the results' announcements demonstrate one sad element about our education system. It is too competitive and result-based.
Students are under serious obligation to excel. Schools, teachers and parents must provide all that it takes to make the students pass. Other noble goals of education such as developing a wholesome character, are relegated to the second tier, as excellence in exams take centre stage.
Indeed, this discussion has occupied the minds of educationists for years, but has not been conclusively addressed. And this is the reason why we must revisit it so that it remains a subject of public discourse until a solution is reached.
Nonetheless, the exams continued to display acute disparities in relation to gender and regions. Last year, there was a dip in girls' performance. For example, a mere 16 per cent of 126,112 girls were able to join the ranks of the best 100 candidates.
Second, irregularities continued to mar the administration of the exams. According to documented figures read out by Education minister Sam Ongeri, there were 1,875 cases of exam cheating last year. It was not lost though that, severally last year, the Press reported cases of leaked exam papers. On a number of occasions, the Press was able to receive copies of papers not yet done.
All these served to reinforce a negative perception about the administration of the exams. Exam administration must be beyond reproach. Any indication to the contrary sends very wrong signals not only about the exams but the entire education system.
Transition to new levels
Third, after the release of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam results, the focus now shifts to post-secondary education. On paper, 82,134 candidates scored grade C+ and above that qualifies them to join the university.
Public and private universities combined will, at best, admit 30,000 students from the 2007 cohort if the institutions continue with a trend they started last year of expanding admission by at least 20 per cent annually.
National polytechnics and other mid-level colleges admit about 75,000 a year. Of course, these colleges take those with lower grades, up to C-.
The challenge, therefore, is to absorb the university qualifiers and also those with grades C-, who by all counts, have passed and need to proceed to the next level. Matters are worse for children from poor backgrounds, who, despite getting good grades, cannot proceed to the next level because of lack of funds to join the private universities or tertiary institutions.
This brings to mind the enduring challenge of increasing funding to the Higher Education Loans Board so that it can support more needy children.
On its own, the board, which has done well in recovering outstanding loans from past beneficiaries, has to accelerate its recovery programme to net more funds.
An equally bigger challenge is for those with grades D+ to C, who need to be absorbed to the middle-level colleges, but which colleges are hard to come by. In the past, certificate and diploma colleges across the professions provided an option for such lot. But things have changed in recent times. Getting access to medical, teacher or agricultural colleges or polytechnics is harder than joining a university.
As the attention is focused on the exams, this is the moment to take stock on the inputs and variables that define our education system and leading to disparities that we all abhor.
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