Our education system needs urgent reboot
By PD columnist, May 3, 2022The release of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) 2021 examination results took the traditional, clichéd, route.
The usual schools from where the “A”s and most top students emerge were as predictable as night, the following day.
Beneath the media, the hype is buried in the real story, which presents a very worrying scenario for the future of education and young people.
A total of 831,015 students sat for the 2021 KCSE exams. Of these, 1,138 scored an A (0.14 per cent). The number of students who scored a C+ and above to qualify for university stood at 145,145 (17.5 per cent).
And now the buried story. Almost two-thirds of the students who sat the examination scored a D+ and below at 495,694 (60 per cent). Of these, 46,159 representing 5.5 per cent, scored an abysmal E.
Try as one might to sugarcoat this, at least 60 per cent of students who sat the KCSE exam failed. This is a huge indictment of the country’s educational system, but it does not seem to be disturbing the sleep of the country’s education mandarins.
The response of the Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha is to exhort parents to “debunk university admission as a success culture.”
Magoha misses the point by a mile. His stature as a towering academician who has gone ahead to achieve great things in life even outside academia, makes him the epitome of why students “must” get into university. Does he know how many parents exhort their children to read hard so that they can excel in university “Like Prof.Magoha?”
He owes the children of Kenya to give each and every one of them equal opportunity to strive to be like their role models. University education changes the trajectory of any child! It is a mark of excellence. The great craving to go to university must not be demeaned. And this is where the education system in Kenya requires a great reset.
It’s all so well to lionise the top schools, but really, it’s a no-brainer. These schools pick the top performers during Form 1 selection, are the best resourced in terms of teachers and facilities, and have the strongest alumni associations. It would actually be shocking if they were not at the top.
The last great reset was in 2003 with Free Primary Education (FPE), which enabled all students, irrespective of their station in life, to go to school. The second must level the playing field to give all candidates an equitable opportunity to qualify for university irrespective of which secondary school they attend.
In other words, unless drastic action is taken, the education system will remain elitist by both design and default, condemning more than two-thirds of students to failure.
What does this reset look like, really?
First, democratise Form 1 selection. Stop giving a few elite schools the first bite of the cherry. Secondly, strengthen the system of national schools that was started a few years ago but inexplicably and wrongly stalled.
The schools should be well-resourced with the singular objective of bringing their teaching faculties and facilities at par with the current elite crop of schools.
Once top students start emerging from a wider network of schools countrywide, the change in mindset will be drastic, and obsession with the elite schools will fizzle out. The aim should be to make all secondary schools national as used to be the case.
Further, the D grade is likely to be degraded as the dominant pass mark, and E grade will assume the normal distribution curve and go below 1 per cent.
The ongoing recalibration of the education system to the Competency-based Curriculum (CBC) provides an excellent opportunity to do this. Align this reset to CBC transformation. This reset is going to be painful, but just like the FPE initiative, is necessary and urgent. Who will bell the cat?
Magoha is one of a select few education ministers who have the chutzpah to make this happen, if only he could see things from this perspective.
— gathukara@gmail.com