Distraught and frustrated parents have increasingly taken matters into their own hands because of disastrous Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) results.

In the last two weeks, parents across various counties have stormed schools and physically ejected principals.

These include St Martin Mafuta School in Uasin Gishu, where the school’s top student achieved a grade of D+ with the rest scoring Es, and Gekonge DEB Mixed Secondary School in Kisii, where parents complained that no student has made it to the university in the past 11 years.

Also, in the fray was St Gabriel Isongo Secondary School in Mumias, where parents complained that out of 197 candidates who sat the KCSE exam, only two made it to the university, while the majority had D-. Worse, they stated, the mean score had dropped from 5 to 2.

In what is clearly a case of hysterical overreaction, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), the teachers’ employer, pulled out all its teachers from St Gabriel Isongo, and seven teachers from St. Martin Mafuta. No statement, no explanation, no acknowledgement of parents’ grievances.

Just the throwing of a major tantrum whose true victims are long suffering students, not the parents they want to spite! Two wrongs, however, do not make a right. Come, let us reason together.

The parents were clearly wrong to storm the schools and eject the principals. However, what are parents to do when TSC is sitting smugly in Nairobi as the future of their children is destroyed by incompetent, self-indulgent principals?

Parents are distraught. What does a parent do with a child who scored a D- or E in a fiercely competitive environment like Kenya? Further, parents are frustrated that they keep reporting to the education authorities and no action is taken! TSC is pushing parents to the edge.

Students do not have second chances. Their first examination attempt must yield results. TSC apparently finds nothing wrong with principals presiding over mass failures in exams. When a whole exam class is inundated with Ds and Es, it means that the principal and his or her teaching staff did zero.

Those students understand nothing in all subjects. The only conclusion is that the principal and teaching staff are utterly incompetent.

This major tantrum by TSC has exposed a shocking side of its chief executive officer that nobody knew existed. The lashing out against parents with long standing, deep-seated grievances displays rash and irrational decision making.

But it also indicates an attempt by TSC at diversionary tactics to obfuscate the elephant in the room- TSC’s supervisory failures, and the sheer scale of the problem of incompetent principals. Are principals ever graded anyway? Do they have performance contracts? How regularly are they evaluated? Is there a system of rewards and punishment?

It is now clear that very little supervision and quality assurance of principals is taking place in the public education ecosystem.

The growing number of Es every year until this year’s record of 48,174 (five per cent) of the 899,453 candidates is a very clear indicator that the problem of incompetent principals in public schools is widespread. The number of Es should follow the standard deviation, not the highly lopsided presentation the 2023 results showed.

This problem has long been camouflaged by the country’s focus on the A schools, students and principals. This focus has effectively provided a cover for incompetent principals and the TSC, as the country indulges its obsession with As.

For TSC chief executive, Nancy Macharia, this is a wake-up call. Instead of giving such principals comfort, she should be holding their feet to the fire! Incompetent principals who are destroying the future of the country’s children must be demoted to go back to the classroom.

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