KWS mediocre recruitment - where the best grade to be a ranger is D+ in KCSE

You must work hard to fail in your exams if your dream is to become a ranger with Kenya Wild Life Service – a state corporation. Spend more time in the school field and jumping over fences to keep fit. Exam leakages which may give your grades a boost must be avoided like the Ebola.

The best KCSE grade allowed for a ranger at KWS is a D+. A grade that makes teachers across the country routinely write: “Below average in academic ability,” in many students’ school leaving certificates. Recently, scores of youngsters who had thronged KWS recruitment centres armed with better grades were turned back.

They were too qualified for the simple job of counting elephants and making sure our rhino horns do not end up in some oriental homes as an aphrodisiac.

The Kenyan wildlife is in danger of extinction. To demonstrate the government’s concern, president Uhuru the other day took time to make a bonfire out of a mountain of recovered Elephant tusks.

This was a clear smoke signal to any oriental with ideas on our elephants. By insisting on below average grades for rangers, KWS is doing the country a great disservice. Schools have been accused of turning children to social misfits by constantly pumping facts, statistics and formulae into their tender minds. Many candidates sleep at mid-night and are up at the crack of dawn with little time for play.

Kenya Wild life service is not just any other organisation: it is a strategic state corporation tasked with the protection of our wild life which is critical in bringing in prized tourist Dollars. Its terms of service are therefore not bad and many youth faced with rising unemployment rates would wish to work there.

Factor in various allowances, a good medical cover and the chance to watch Kenya’s rich wild life at close range without having to pay a dime. While those who had worked hard together with those who had stolen exams so as to score good grades felt betrayed, the state corporation has dealt a blow to the growing exam leakages industry.

After all, why cheat in exams, pass well and then be declared too qualified for a certain job. Other state corporations should follow suit and even declare E as their maximum academic qualification. Hon. Kaimenyi would know peaceful sleep as there would be no need for press conferences announcing a ban on holiday tuition.

Some unpatriotic teachers in the country are getting worried though. They feel the move by KWS ridicules the need for hard work.

The situation is made worse by students who spend most of their time on social media and mobile phone games and prepare for the national exams by saving their pocket money.

The money is pooled at the opportune time to buy leaked exam papers -- chamas start early! Worries that the crop of rangers may not be a match for modern sophisticated poachers are clearly misplaced. Elephants do not need very bright sparks. And in case the ranger finds the Chinese Yuan too alluring to resist and decides to take a walk on the other ridge while a rhino or an elephant is having the prized item being sawed off, the monetary rewards may be good.

In Kenya we worship money and hardly bother with the source. Such a fellow may soon make enough money to become an MCA or even a member of parliament. The tactics learnt in the wild would really come in handy when pulling down panties of female members during acrimonious debates in the august house.