You can still study hard at home and pass your exam

At least 13 million school-going children are settling in for another month at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The disruption of the academic calendar has had an effect on the learners, but to the more than the 1.9 million candidates in Standard Eight and Form Four, every day away from school is a nightmare. The countdown to their date with the examiner has started, and every minute is precious.

They are expected to sit their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and Kenya Certificate for Primary Education (KCPE) exams scheduled for November.

Anxiety over the fate of the national examinations is spreading as the candidates remain on tenterhooks and appear to be at home for the long haul as the government controls the spread of the respiratory virus.

Teachers’ unions such as the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers are already pressuring the government to postpone the national examinations, arguing that the candidates will be inadequately prepared.

However, by all indications so far, the examinations will go on as scheduled. President Uhuru Kenyatta said during an interview at State House they would go on uninterrupted.

But should the crisis persist long enough to affect the examinations, can candidates do their exams from home?

Anecdotes from individuals who successfully navigated learning from home and reporting to a centre to do the exam suggest a possible new reality and could offer vital lessons for this year’s candidates and the unprecedented position they find themselves in.

Private candidature is not a new phenomenon in Kenya. Every year thousands of candidates sign up at centres across the country to earn their KCPE, KCSE and even International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) as private candidates. Some of these candidates have little contact or engagement with teachers before sitting their examinations.

DS Njoroge, a veteran music promoter, told Saturday Standard he believed there was precedent for candidates learning from home and having the schools open later in the year to have them sit their exams.

“Students can read from home and only come to sit exams. I read for my A Levels  as a private candidate in 1972 while working in Mandera and passed better than those who were in Alliance,” Mr Njoroge said.

“I had no teacher to ask questions, the temperatures were punishing. By 10am it was between 35 to 45 degrees, but I was admitted under mature age entrance to Makerere University.”

Another unique scholar, Paul Macharia, the Murang’a County Cooperatives and Dairy Development Executive had to go through the rough and tumble to get education.

He told Saturday Standard he successfully sat his KCSE exam in 2006 by only registering as a candidate and doing all of the reading away from the classroom.

Macharia scored an A- of 74 points and emerged the best in the school despite spending years away from school working as a hawker.

“I was never in any classroom, I made a time table for myself that guided me until I completed the syllabus. In the second term examination I was number 82 out of 84,” he said. And while his peers were  receiving instructions from their tutors, Macharia would be all alone in a room. He spent his nights labouring in weak light in a deserted class.

Adding that in-between working as hawker and preparing for his exams, he slept for three hours to catch up with the coursework.

But that was the fourth time Macharia was sitting a national exam. He had sat his KCPE twice, in 1997 and 1998 when he qualified to join Njiiri Boys High School. He sat his KCSE in 2004 and scored 65 points, which was below the university entry cut-off mark and took the exam again two years later.

Today, he is savouring the success of his labour as he serves Murang’a County government, supervising the principal who once chased him out of school due to lack of fees. He is now pursuing his doctoral studies in finance.