Grave state of public schools fuel growth of private facilities that are no better

By Harold Ayodo

With private primary schools contributing nearly 80 per cent of Form One pupils in national secondary schools, demand for places in the institutions are high.

Parents are desperate to enrol their children in private schools without considering that it is the high-cost ones that do well. They are unaware that most private schools employ untrained, have inadequate facilities and engage in examination cheating.

While releasing KCPE results earlier this year Education Minister Sam Ongeri said many private schools use irregular tactics to get good results.

He said headteachers in public schools collude with proprietors of private institutions to post good results in national examinations. "Some head teachers allow their best students to register for KCPE in private schools," he said.

In last year’s examination a private school in Mombasa was found to have registered four top candidates from a public school to boost its KCPE ranking.

Poaching of bright candidates from public schools contravenes Section 16 of the Public Officers Ethics Act. "We are investigating private schools which use unethical examination practices in a bid to attain good results, Ongeri said.

Malpractices isolated

But others say isolated incidents of malpractices should not take away from the achievements of private schools.

Kenya National Examinations Council Chief Executive Officer Paul Wasanga says teachers in private schools take their work more seriously.

Parents in private institutions willingly invest in learning resources at the start of the terms giving advantage to pupils in the schools over those in public ones that have to wait for free learning funds that at best come midway the term.

"Delays in receiving funds from the Government affect performance in public schools," Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KSSHA) Chairman Cleophas Tirop says. Others experts say enrolment is a key factor in the performance gap. In most private schools enrolment is low enabling teachers to give individual attention to students," Wasanga says.

Olympic Primary School in Kibera, a top performer in the 1990s, registered 232 candidates compared to eleven by Pinocchio Academy in Kisumu. Only eight candidates scored over 400 of 500 marks at Olympic where the top candidate managed 434 points. Pinocchio had a mean score of 330.68.

Nairobi Primary School, which used to be one of the top performers in KCPE, had 183 candidates in the examination last year compared to most top performing private institutions that registered less than 50.

Other public schools that had high number of candidates included Kayole One Primary with 260 and Bondeni Primary with 210.

 

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