Nairobi — Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu says the gender parity among candidates who sat for the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations has dropped slightly in favor of the male gender.
Speaking on Wednesday when releasing the 2023 KCPE results, Machogu said the gender parity for male candidates (721,540) was at 52.3 percent while that of female candidates (685,017) equivalent to 48.70 percent.
In 2022, 619,943 male candidates registered for the KCPE exams, representing 50.3 percent of the total.
This is an increase from the previous year, when 101, 597 more male applicants enrolled for the 2023 exams.
"In 1985, the country had a low gender in 1985, the country had a low gender parity favoring male at 59.2 percent and female at 40.8 percent. Encouragingly, from 2013 to 2022, the country achieved near equal gender parity for male and female candidates," he said.
"However, in the 2023 KCPE Examination, the gender 24 parity slightly shifted in favor of male at 51.30 percent and female at 48.70 per cent."
Additionally, Mandera Garissa, Turkana, Wajir, Machakos, Nyamira, Samburu, Baringo, Nandi and Makueni counties recorded a significant entry of more male than female candidates.
Isiolo is the top county that recorded a significant entry of more female than male candidates with 51.75 percent female entry versus 48.25 percent male entry.
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The counties which had the highest percentages of candidates who were 12 years and below in the year 2023 KCPE Examination were Baringo with 7.30 percent, Wajir with 6.37 percent, followed by Bomet 5.99 percent, Kericho and West Pokot with 5.82 percent and 5.57 percent respectively.
"The highest number of candidates in the KCPE Examination were in the appropriate age bracket of 13-15 years were 1,023,859 which is equivalent to 72.31 percent, a trend which has been observed over the last five years," he added.
The counties which had the highest percentages of candidates who were 18 years and above were Garissa (25.86 percent), Turkana (24.50 percent), Kwale (16.09 percent), Kilifi (15.66 percent) and Mandera (33.90 percent)
In the 2023 KCPE Examination, there were 1,406,557 candidates who sat the KCPE examination in 28,533 examination centres across the country. Of these, there were 721,544 (51.30 per cent) male and 685,017 (48.70per cent) female candidates who sat the examination.
"A total of 205 candidates who were not registered were allowed to sit the 2023 KCPE examination. Of these, 125 were male while 80 were female candidates," he said.
