National schools in Central stand out in KCSE

Abdalla Omar of Wamy High School celebrates with his English teacher Peter Kibuchi at the Standard Group offices in Nairobi yesterday. Omar scored A plain of 84 points. [PHOTO: JACOB OTIENO/STANDARD]

NAIROBI: National schools in Central posted impressive results in KCSE as their candidates dominated the list of best performers.

The traditional academic giants produced the top students but a few private schools and former provincial schools managed to sneak in a good number of students with a mean grade of A.

Alliance Boys High School, Alliance Girls, Mang'u High School, Maryhill School, Limuru Girls and Loreto Limuru put up a strong showing in the results released yesterday.

New national schools that include Murang'a High School, Kagumo High School, Mugoiri Girls, Kahuhia Girls and Nyeri High School also had remarkable results.

Catholic-run St Mary's Boys High School in Nyeri flexed its muscles yet again by producing some of the top candidates in the country.

However, there were no celebrations at Bishop Gatimu Ngandu Girls High School as  teachers in the school indicated they had not received their results when we called.

Other private schools that posted impressive results were Pioneer School in Murang'a and Mary Mother of Grace in Laikipia.

Murang'a High School was among the best-improved national schools after it managed to get a mean of 10.74, up from 10.72 the previous year.

Kagumo High School, one of the institutions elevated recently to a national school was also in a celebratory mood as it posted a mean grade of 10.54.
Among its candidates, 50 had plain As, 104 (A-) 58 (B+) in a student population of 252 candidates.
"We are so happy and proud of our 2015 class. We thank God for the good results posted by the candidates," said principal Lawrence Kiwara.

He described the former students as disciplined. "We attribute the good performance to their hard work and discipline," Kiwara added.

Mr Kiwara commended the teaching staff for their dedication, saying they did not participate in a month-long strike like their colleagues countrywide.
"They remained in school for the entire period. Their dedication made us realise this improvement," he said.

It was the same story at Nyeri High School, which also produced top students.
Examination irregularities seemed to have gone down in Central. Nyeri County had results of just six candidates cancelled.