Tears over schools coding blunder

By Kepher Otieno

When he received his KCPE results last month, Allan Odhiambo Okong’o was excited for he had topped is class at Genesis Primary School in Kisii Central.

Scoring 392 marks of 500, he missed being among the top 100 performers in Nyanza by a whisker and was confident of making it to his top provincial choice — St Joseph’s High School Rapogi in Uriri.

But jubilation turned into tears when his father — Joseph Okong’o went to pick his Form One admission letter. Not only did he miss out on his dream school but he had been called to a district school that he had not chosen. Instead he was picked for St Michael’s Nyandema in Migori, a school he had never heard of.

"My son was mad with me when I brought him the calling letter. He broke down in tears," he says.

His father was to receive more shocking news when he visited St Joseph’s to try and get a place for his son during second selection. The school that had never admitted candidates with less than 360 marks of 500 was this year expecting 50 new students with less than 300 marks, the lowest score being 260.

On enquiring from the school administration, he learnt that many candidates from the province with high scores and who had chosen St Joseph’s last year ended up at St Michael’s Nyandema, a non-descript district school, 80km away from St Joseph’s.

28 schools

It is now emerging a school-coding blunder by the Education ministry may have contributed to many students with lower grades being admitted to provincial schools at the expense of those with high grades.

Head teachers from 28 secondary schools in Rongo, Uriri, and Migori districts disclosed to this writer that their schools did not feature in the list circulated last year and candidates could not therefore pick them. As a result students who scored as low marks as 260 landed in provincial schools, which normally admits students with not less than 350 marks of 500.

When this writer visited St Joseph’s he found a stream of parents with their children with tales similar to Odhiambo’s. The school had registered complaints from 24 students of which six received calling letters to join St Michael’s.

St Joseph’s Principal Thomas Kogola says he is overwhelmed with handling parents complaints but refuses to divulge other details.

The events that led to the gaffe started at the beginning of last year when the ministry sent a revised examination centre index code list to schools owing to the creation of new districts. Some schools got new index codes but their old numbers were given to other schools.

For instance St Joseph’s was allocated the new index code 707502 and its old one of 707 202 given to St Michael’s. This was later followed up by a Form One selection list in which some schools, especially those in new districts did not feature while others like St Joseph’s were listed but without index codes. When candidates brought this to the attention of head teachers they contacted the Provincial Director of Education Geoffrey Cherongis who sought direction from Knec before advising schools to make their selection using the old codes.

Received complaints

Cherongis confirmed he received complaints from schools in newly created districts that their codes were missing from the selection list but he declined to divulge details of how many were affected in the mix up. He urges parents whose children have been affected to be patient as the ministry is working to rectify the anomaly. He says that Odhiambo, who was the first to raise the red flag, will be admitted at St Joseph’s. "We regret the error," he says.

But Knec absolved itself from blame. Public Relations Officer, Ken Ramani says: "Knec only processes administers and examinations. Admissions to secondary schools is not in our mandate."

The problem may have affected other regions but Nyanza was worst hit amid reports of its dwindling academic performance in national exams.

Even as education officials claimed that the problem was being rectified some parents are up in arms over what they termed as an affront to hard work. "Why work hard with an aim to join a national or provincial school only to end up in a poor performing district one. This will demoralise our children and inculcate a culture of laziness," says an infuriated parent Ben Siengo.

A Senior Deputy Director of Education Charles Khayira says the schools had no locus standi to complain about admission marks. "The selection and distribution of candidates was done based on how each district performed. If the leading candidate in Migori had 260 marks, then he stood a chance of joining the top school there, he argues.

He gave the example of North Eastern Province, which took students with less than 300 marks to the national schools under the revised quota system.

But he did admit that schools in new districts had their revised index codes missing from the selection list.

Issue reported

A senior deputy director of tertiary and secondary education, Mr Adan Abdillahi, confirms to The Standard that they were aware of the problem.

"It is true that the issue was reported to the ministry and we advised Knec to send the old school codes so that candidates do not miss other schools from their lists," he says.