New Knec grading system, subjects cluster to boost KCSE final scores

These two subjects will be used alongside a candidate's best five performed subjects to compute the final score.

Presently, the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) grades candidates based on five compulsory subjects and two other best-performing subjects.

Knec uses a candidate's scores in Mathematics, which is compulsory, two compulsory languages, namely English and Kiswahili, and two sciences chosen from either Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

The remaining two subjects are derived from humanities/art courses, chosen from Religious Education, Geography, History, Business Studies, Agriculture, and other technical subjects.

In its recommendations, the reforms team said, "Develop guidelines for computing KCSE mean score (based on English/Kiswahili, Maths, and five other best subjects)."

The team proposed that the changes be implemented within one year. This means that if they are affected, the 2023 candidates will be the first to benefit from the new proposal.

President William Ruto, on Wednesday, indicated that out of the 11,000 secondary schools in the country, over 5,000 schools do not send a single child to university, with many of them located in rural areas.

"That is a cause for us to do some soul searching. Many of the students who end up at our universities are the children in academies and the children of people who can afford a certain quality of education. Kenya cannot continue like this; we have to rethink," he said.

President Ruto spoke during the opening of the Open University of Kenya at Konza Technopolis City.

KNEC Chief Executive Officer David Njengere welcomed the proposals and explained that the current grading system has shattered the dreams of many graduates.

Dr Njengere said the changes will prevent the salvage of dreams for learners in the last remaining five classes under the 8-4-4 system.

Currently, there are five classes in the country under the 8-4-4 education system. The last cohort will sit the KCPE examination this year, meaning they will join a secondary school in 2024 and will exit secondary school in 2027.

Dr Njengere said the proposal by the Presidential working party will restructure the grading system to be responsive to the career interests a student wants to pursue.

"The challenge with what we have been doing with 8-4-4 is a very narrow and rigid curriculum, which, at the point of exit, demands every child, regardless of their strengths, to be tested in the same subjects, and that forms part of their final grade. It is a full broad range, very heavy lifting for any child," Njengere said.

President William Ruto receives the report from the Presidential Working Party for Education Reform. [PCS]

"On achievement, we will assess you because you need to have some fundamental knowledge in numeracy, literacy," he said. It is emerging that the present grading system has ranked Kenya below other countries.

Analysis of data from the East Africa region, for example, shows that Kenya ranks lowest in the number of top grades, otherwise referred to as distinctions - that is Grade A and A- (minus) in the final national examination.

In contrast, Kenya's performance plummeted with only 0.85 per cent. This means only 7,553 candidates managed to get a Grade A or A- (minus), the equivalent of a distinction in Uganda and Tanzania.

"This is where you start telling yourself that the problem may not be the students but the system we are using to grade our children. Perhaps we are using a system that is a little too punitive for them, and we are not separating achievement from placement," Dr. Njengere said.

Another comparison between the performance of the final secondary school exam under the 8-4-4 and the education system preceding it, the 7-4-2-3 education system:

The analysis shows that between 1983 and 1986, some 3,509 candidates (equivalent to 3.21 per cent of those who sat the exams) got Division 1, the topmost grade at O-levels.

However, upon the adoption of the 8-4-4, the numbers dropped drastically.

In 1989 for example, only one student out of 130,639 candidates scored Grade A in KCSE. In the following year, 1990 there were 131,932 candidates but none scored an A. And in 1991, the candidature rose to 166,712 out of which only two scored an A.

Even with the undertones of examination cheating and malpractice that raged before the reforms of 2016, data from the Knec shows the best results were in 2014, but even then, only 0.635 per cent of the total candidature scored an A.

"Let's assume that there was this massive cheating that happened, we could not get even one percent of the total candidate population getting the topmost grade," he said.