NEP residents decry cancellation of KCSE results, demand remark

By Boniface Ongeri Teachers, subordinate staff and students of Garissa High School received the recently released 2011 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results with murmurs of discontent and disbelief.Last year, they said, they had given their all and thus had high hopes of doing well. They even thought they would send more students to public universities.All eyes were particularly on Elyas Bishar Ahmed. The school’s Deputy Principal Mohammed Abdikarim says: "The boy and dozens of others were very promising and their performance had been the pride of the school."But hope was lost when the results were released. Ahmed, who got an overall grade A, had an A- in Chemistry, with a Y attached to it, meaning the results were questionable.The teachers and students said the results came as a shocker."I was waiting for the Minister for Education Sam Ongeri’s to announce that Elyas was the leading boy in Garissa County, if not North Eastern Province (NEP). We were surprised because the cancelled subject was his favourite," Mr Abdikarim says.Ahmed, optimistic as ever, states he does not doubt his capabilities. "If KNEC doubts my capability, they can give me the opportunity to redo the paper today and will pass within an even shorter time. I appeal to KNEC to do some background check before they cancel results. We are demanding a remark," he said.Ahmed is one of the more than 1,600 students in North Eastern Province whose exam results were cancelled due to irregularities. The last time such mass cancellations were reported was in 1997 when more than 500 students were affected. In between, a handful of students have had their results cancelled over irregularities.The mass cancellation of the exams caps the region’s perpetual dismal performance in national examinations, earning it the dubious tag of leading from behind.Over the years, performance in this province has been so poor that the best student could not be ranked among the top 100 in any other province except at the Coast.Nevertheless, residents are not convinced they are the worst performers. They think something sinister happens during examination marking.A day after the results were announced, residents of Garissa went to the streets in protest, castigating the Ministry of Education."We believe the Ministry of Education is using the region’s history of perennial poor performance to discredit us at the slightest opportunity," says Sugow Bishar. Evidence needed"Telling us there were irregularities is not enough; we want evidence to that effect. If the examination body has failed to monitor exams, it should be disbanded," Mr Bishar said. Nevertheless, a section of residents believe underlying factors have contributed to the poor performance.Mohamed Bunow Korane, director of Jihan Foundation and Strategic Management Consultant said lack of learning material, corruption, parental guidance and negative attitude towards education has contributed to the poor results."Due to lack of facilities, schools find it hard to provide necessary apparatus to students during practical lessons. This was one area that led to cancellation of this year’s KCSE, after monitors from KNEC witnessed students sharing chemistry apparatus at the laboratory, at the same time communicating in their mother tongue. They concluded that this was a pre-arranged cheating mechanism by teachers and students.Unfortunately, no one explained to them beforehand," Mr Korane says.North Eastern Provincial Director of Education Adan Sheikh Abdillai said those whose results were cancelled are advised to register as private candidates. "We are yet to establish what went wrong but there were exam leaks all over the country. The problem is that after the students got the leakage they did not answer in their own words and it was detected during marking," he said."We don’t condone cheating but some of the leaks that are discussed out of school are sometimes beyond our control. We will be holding education stakeholders meeting to discuss the way forward", he said. Mandera Central MP Abdikadir Mohammed said the results created a bad picture of the province."The region has few candidates registered for the examination and the mass cancellation does not help matters. We are pursuing the options of requesting for a remark despite the expenses that would be involved, to ensure it is true that such large number could be involved in irregularities. Some of the students can be asked to re-register to re-sit the exams. It is a very sad year for NEP," he observed.Nominated MP Mohammed Affey had sought a ministerial statement to explain the cancellation for the results. He expressed astonishment at the cancellation, terming it a disaster, a hit squad aimed at destroying the morale of the students.Doubted ability"We believe KNEC was surprised by the level of good performance in the province and they doubted the ability of the students. Cheating can happen but not on the mass scale KNEC wants us to believe," he said. Khalif Abdi Farah, the Coordinator of Northern Forum for Democracy says the Ministry of Education, the Teachers Service Commission and Kenya National Examination Council have continued presiding over poor school management, cheating in exams and protecting incompetent education and school heads."We know of teachers who have run down schools but the Ministry and some politicians protect them," he said. Parents have also taken the flak for the dismal performance. Elyas Abdi, principal of Wajir High School said parents have not played their rightful places in shaping their children. Mr Abdi said they often delay in paying school fees, making the students to miss the syllabus when they are sent home.

NEP residents decry cancellation of KCSE results, demand remark

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