Sanity at last

The release of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) yesterday by Dr. Fred Matiangi points at serious problems bedeviling our education sector. A shockingly sharp decline in the number of A’s, even with academic giants such as Maranda High School, who have previously produced 100 A’s registering not a single one, explains how rotten our examination system had gotten.

We must give credit where it’s due. Kudos to the indefatigable CS Dr. Fred Matiangi. You have, almost single-handedly, restored sanity in our exams, firstly by ensuring that every candidate got their results. As he did put in his own words:

“There was no monkey business this time. The results are clean, clear and a true reflection of where we are as a country and where we want to go,” Said Dr. Matiangi.

Kenya has long laid emphasis on getting a good grade, at the expense of quality. It’s indeed worrying that a good number of students, who the take the ‘plum’ courses in the university, do so at the expense of other bright students and later drop out of the courses due to their intellectual incompetence.

Almost a half of the students met the university admission cut off of C+ compare to last year, with 88,929 qualifying this year, compared to 169,492 last year.

A huge number of students failed to meet the cut-off points, 482,232, and have to fight for space in tertiary colleges and polytechnics.

When all has been said and done, a student’s potential must not be measured by the grade they get but the quality of that grade. This has contributed to all manner of exam irregularities as teachers as parents, colluding with exam officials, award grades that do not reflect on the student’s ability.

It’s the hope of every Kenyan that the measures put in place remain for the longest time possible.