NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 3 – Post election violence and unrest in schools last year contributed to a massive decline in performance in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.
In the results released on Tuesday candidates who scored a grade of C+ and above to meet university requirements declined to 72,679 compared to 82,134 in 2007. This means that only 24 percent of the 300,000 candidates met the mark.
Education Minister Sam Ongeri said that there was a drop in the key subjects of English, Kiswahili, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Prof Ongeri said that closure of schools and destruction of property caused by the political instability at the start of last year led to disruption of learning for a good part of the first term.
“The wave of violence in schools affected teaching and learning, resulting to loss of learning time and by extension a drop in performance,” the Minister said.
Mathematics and four low candidature non-compulsory subjects of Art and Design, Aviation Technology, HRE and German recorded an improvement.
There was a drop in performance of History, Agriculture, Computer studies, Business studies, Home science, Arabic, CRE, IRE and Music.
This time around, the Kenya National Examinations Council scrapped the listing of top performing schools and instead opted to rank students individually.
Alliance High School filled three of the top 10 positions in the results, scooping positions one, five and nine. The usual leaders Starehe Boys secured position two and six in the top 10. Maseno High School took two positions while Kenya High, Uasin Gishu High School and Mary Mother of Grace Boys each got one position in the top 10 best students nationally.
Although cases of irregularities in the examinations declined slightly, more sophisticated methods were reported. Prof Ongeri raised concerns that a number of school heads and teachers were involved in acquiring mobile phones for use by the candidates to cheat.
“Such principals and teachers are unfit for the job they are doing and are being subjected to disciplinary action,” he said.
Cheating cases dropped to 1,419 compared to 1,875 in 2007. Forty two people were arrested and charged during the examination period including 29 students.
Gender ratio still stands at 46 percent girls and 54 percent boys. Among the top 10 candidates only one was female while in the top 100 only 26 were girls. North Eastern province recorded the poorest girls’ representation with 26 percent compared to boys at 74 percent.
The top 10 students are:
1. Maugo Nyauma – Alliance High School.
2. Nyaosi Omete – Starehe Boys.
3. Patel Nikhil – Uasin Gishu Boys
4. Mukhongo Velma – Kenya High.
5. Ogaro Mosigisi – Alliance High School.
6. Bosire Omingo – Starehe Boys.
7. Tabu Okinyi – Maseno High.
8. Bernard Tabarua – Mary Mother of Grace.
9. Kimani Wabacha – Alliance High.
10. Ondingo Asango – Maseno High.
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