By Wachira Kigotho

With the KCSE examination going on, parental stress has gone a notch higher and some candidates are getting threats of various consequences from their parents in case they fail to obtain high grades.

But if earlier KCSE results are anything to go by, then most parents had better calm down because over 50 per cent of the 330,000 candidates are likely to score mean grades of D+ to E.

In KCSE last year, 151,712 students, representing 50.3 per cent of the total candidature scored grades in that bracket.

Over 7,000 candidates scored E grade, an academic performance statement that all is not well in most schools.

No parental threats, yelling, tough reasoning or even prayer sessions held before the start of the examinations will improve the results. The issue is that where most students have initial intelligence to enable them to do well in school, many of them fail because they are not provided with an environment and tools to learn properly.

Available evidence show many secondary schools, especially the public district and low cost private schools lack core textbooks and laboratory facilities. If your child is attending one of those schools, you better stop putting pressure on him or her but wait for the results and then see how best you can salvage the siuation. Granted that subsidised secondary education has enhanced access, classrooms are overcrowded and teachers overworked.

According to the state-owned think-tank, Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (Kippra), the country has very few secondary schools to cater for the population.

"On average, there is one secondary school per 139Km2 compared to one primary school 30km2," reports KIPPRA. Even then, schools with adequate facilities are too few and most students are gang-pressed in institutions without basic learning facilities.

No matter what happens, most students in those schools are likely to perform poorly in KCSE compared to their counterparts in good schools.

Subsequently, the reality of non- performing secondary schools seems to have rattled the Government, sparking the move to revive outdated curriculum that offer less practical oriented science subjects and simpler form of mathematics.

Although, the Kenya Institute of Education argues the alternative curriculum is designed to prepare students who will pursue further studies in courses that do not require intensive use of science and mathematics, the changes are targeting students in public district and low cost schools. But where the Government is bracing for easier options instead of improving facilities in schools, the crux of the matter is that standards in those schools will still remain low.

Statistics from the Kenya National Examinations Council indicate national, provincial and high cost schools in all subjects examined in KCSE outperform public and low cost secondary schools.

Apart from getting poor results in mathematics and science subjects, such schools also post poor results in English and Kiswahili. So far, there is very little one can do to stop a student from failing KCSE in those schools.

According to one of the studies carried by the Ministry of Education, lack of learning facilities is a serious problem.

"Most of the small schools do not have a building they can call a laboratory," says the report. The report says during KCSE, students are taken to neighbouring schools for practical papers.

"Many laboratories in small schools are containers without contents," adds the report. Even before the new diluted curriculum is introduced, some schools had stopped offering physics, a subject considered hard by students in lower-end category of schools.

But parents should also know that their children are going to fail KCSE if they had been attending schools characterised by high level of indiscipline. The issue is that unrest and riots in schools are major causes of absenteeism among teachers and students.

Besides, parents should also know that their children might not perform well if they have been victims of physical and sexual abuse at home or in school.

Recent exposure that almost 13,000 schoolgirls were sexually abused by their teachers is a just an eye-opener as to the reason many students fail to perform in their studies.

Add the number of schoolgirls who are sexually harassed by their male counterparts in mixed secondary schools and those suffering sexual abuse at home and the figure of victims of sexual abuse is likely to be several times higher than reported.