Friday, December 30, 2005
NYANZA AND EDUCATION KCPE 2005
KCPE RESULTS 2005
The figures from the KCPE results present some interesting reading. Some people are bound to condemn them as not representative of the situation on the ground without giving us what is representative of the situation on the ground. In light of lack of alternative figures we are bound to go with what we have.
The girl child is still a threatened species in our examination performance. Nationally only a third of the 900 best students were girls in last year’s exam. Looking at the provincial figures, the disparity in top scoring girls ranges from a low of 22.12% (23 girls in top 100) in North Eastern Province to a high of 40.52% (47 girls in top 100) in Nairobi. Nairobi and Rift Valley produced some of the brightest girls, something to consider when thinking about where to get your future wife.
North Eastern continues with its perennial dismal performance. The song will be repeated again this year as in the past 40 plus years of independence about lack of facilities and the nomadic nature of the residents. The government will be called to bring development and preferential treatment sought in the form one admission process. By the end of February the whole thing will be forgotten until the next results in December. NEP may have a case, but what of Nyanza.
There was a time that Nyanza produced some of the best brains in h\the country, maybe it still does, but this is not reflected in performance in last year’s exam. While Nyanza leads in the awakening of the political consciousness of the nation, it continues to trail in the education arena as measured by KCPE performance last year.
Let us look at the statistics. The top performing student in Nyanza scored 447 which beats only NEP whose top scorer had 421. Nyanza managed to put only 2 (read two) students in the top 100 nationally, whose cut off point was 444. Compare this with 34 from Central, 25 from Nairobi, 19 from RVP and even 6 from coast. In Nyanza, only 8 students scored above 440 marks. Compare this with 62 from Central, 37 from Nairobi, 38 from RVP, 21 from neighboring Western, 12 from coast, 17 from Eastern.
If you look at the cut off score of the provincial performance, among the top 100 in the province, Nyanza’s performance is dismal. The lower score of 423 among the top 100 beats NEP and Coast. However the latter has a higher number of quality performers. The bottom 100 in Central had 435 which was the score for position 21 in Nyanza.
Of course these are statistics and can be interpreted differently but one thing they don’t do is lie. While the ranking of performance is irrelevant, the quality of performance cannot be ignored. Absolute scores are reflective of the trends in opportunities for higher education. Short of quota systems, which I believe are inherently discriminatory against better students, some areas will continue to lag behind in sending their sons and daughters to national schools. There is need for local leaders to analyze the results from their constituencies and focus on quality education. Most of our leaders, including those in the cabinet keep calling upon the government to provide resources for various projects. Yet few of them have ever produced concrete programs to be implemented at the local level to improve performance. Who is this government?
Leaders in Nyanza and other provinces should sit down and address their shortcomings and start remedial measures to improve performance. Some leaders will only talk about problems when the press is there. They will never sit down with their constituents to seek ways to improve the lot of the common man. This is playing politics. The solutions to some of these problems do not lay in shouting about them in the press. It is not in Nairobi or state house. Some of the problems can be solved at the local level. Let the teachers be involved, let the parents be involved, let the wearer tell you where the shoe is pinching. If each school improves its performance by a mere one point per year, nationally we will be pulling up the quality of our education. Let us have all the MPs coming up with programs of how to lift the standard of education in their constituencies. Let us not play politics with education. Just because some MPS are highly educated doesn’t mean the whole constituency is highly educated. Conversely just because most MPs are educationally challenged doesn’t mean their constituents should wallow in the quagmire of illiteracy and ignorance.
The figures from the KCPE results present some interesting reading. Some people are bound to condemn them as not representative of the situation on the ground without giving us what is representative of the situation on the ground. In light of lack of alternative figures we are bound to go with what we have.
The girl child is still a threatened species in our examination performance. Nationally only a third of the 900 best students were girls in last year’s exam. Looking at the provincial figures, the disparity in top scoring girls ranges from a low of 22.12% (23 girls in top 100) in North Eastern Province to a high of 40.52% (47 girls in top 100) in Nairobi. Nairobi and Rift Valley produced some of the brightest girls, something to consider when thinking about where to get your future wife.
North Eastern continues with its perennial dismal performance. The song will be repeated again this year as in the past 40 plus years of independence about lack of facilities and the nomadic nature of the residents. The government will be called to bring development and preferential treatment sought in the form one admission process. By the end of February the whole thing will be forgotten until the next results in December. NEP may have a case, but what of Nyanza.
There was a time that Nyanza produced some of the best brains in h\the country, maybe it still does, but this is not reflected in performance in last year’s exam. While Nyanza leads in the awakening of the political consciousness of the nation, it continues to trail in the education arena as measured by KCPE performance last year.
Let us look at the statistics. The top performing student in Nyanza scored 447 which beats only NEP whose top scorer had 421. Nyanza managed to put only 2 (read two) students in the top 100 nationally, whose cut off point was 444. Compare this with 34 from Central, 25 from Nairobi, 19 from RVP and even 6 from coast. In Nyanza, only 8 students scored above 440 marks. Compare this with 62 from Central, 37 from Nairobi, 38 from RVP, 21 from neighboring Western, 12 from coast, 17 from Eastern.
If you look at the cut off score of the provincial performance, among the top 100 in the province, Nyanza’s performance is dismal. The lower score of 423 among the top 100 beats NEP and Coast. However the latter has a higher number of quality performers. The bottom 100 in Central had 435 which was the score for position 21 in Nyanza.
Of course these are statistics and can be interpreted differently but one thing they don’t do is lie. While the ranking of performance is irrelevant, the quality of performance cannot be ignored. Absolute scores are reflective of the trends in opportunities for higher education. Short of quota systems, which I believe are inherently discriminatory against better students, some areas will continue to lag behind in sending their sons and daughters to national schools. There is need for local leaders to analyze the results from their constituencies and focus on quality education. Most of our leaders, including those in the cabinet keep calling upon the government to provide resources for various projects. Yet few of them have ever produced concrete programs to be implemented at the local level to improve performance. Who is this government?
Leaders in Nyanza and other provinces should sit down and address their shortcomings and start remedial measures to improve performance. Some leaders will only talk about problems when the press is there. They will never sit down with their constituents to seek ways to improve the lot of the common man. This is playing politics. The solutions to some of these problems do not lay in shouting about them in the press. It is not in Nairobi or state house. Some of the problems can be solved at the local level. Let the teachers be involved, let the parents be involved, let the wearer tell you where the shoe is pinching. If each school improves its performance by a mere one point per year, nationally we will be pulling up the quality of our education. Let us have all the MPs coming up with programs of how to lift the standard of education in their constituencies. Let us not play politics with education. Just because some MPS are highly educated doesn’t mean the whole constituency is highly educated. Conversely just because most MPs are educationally challenged doesn’t mean their constituents should wallow in the quagmire of illiteracy and ignorance.
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Are you sure the KCPE examination results are not doctored. There is a rumour in Nairobi that the results were delayed by a day to enable penalisiing of high cost private schools students by reducing their marks by 12 marks.This was to show that the pooly planned "free primary education" is a success. This politisization of national examinations are making employers not to trust exams results originating from the highly politisized government bodies. Most job "interviews" in Kenya nowdays are a repeat of the exams the the job seeker claims to have passed. I would have been happier if the blogger critisized the assistant minister for encouraging the politisization of exam results.
# posted by 
: 1:01 AM
: 1:01 AM
I appreciate your comments. However, you are talking about 2006 KCPE results while my article was about 2005 results. Just check the date of publication.
If there are employers basing their recruitment on KCPE results, that must be a sorry lot. The bottom line is the results were poor in Nyanza and have been so for a number of years. The cure is not to blame each but to come up with a clear policy to overcome this perenial poor performance. Our current political set up cannot allow this to be done effectively without the involvement of the politicians. Their leadership to date has been lacking.
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If there are employers basing their recruitment on KCPE results, that must be a sorry lot. The bottom line is the results were poor in Nyanza and have been so for a number of years. The cure is not to blame each but to come up with a clear policy to overcome this perenial poor performance. Our current political set up cannot allow this to be done effectively without the involvement of the politicians. Their leadership to date has been lacking.
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