Alliance Boys, Moi High School Kabarak give Kenya the KCSE champs

Alliance Boys' King’ori Tom Wanderi is carried shoulder high after emerging the best candidate in 2013 KCSE examination. (Photo:Standard)

By Augustine Oduor  

Kenya: Alliance Boys dislodged Moi High School, Kabarak, from the top perch in the 2013 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam’s national ranking.

Alliance posted the best mean score of 81.78 against Kabarak’s 79.86 in the results which Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi termed as a ‘slight drop’ compared to 2012. Founded by retired President Moi, Kabarak was second and emerged the best private school nationally.

King’ori Tom Wanderi of Alliance High emerged the best candidate, posting a mean score of 87.11.

 This mark is however 2.75 points below the 89.86 scored by the top candidate in 2012. Alliance High School, in Kiambu County, scooped 22 slots in the list of top 100 candidates nationally. The top student said he wants to study Chemical Engineering.

 “I am proud of my performance and I thank my teachers and parents for the support,” he said. Obiero Aloo Shem of Maranda High emerged the second best with a mean score of 86.99, as Kivuva Angela Nzisa of Moi High School was ranked third with a score of 86.86.98.

But curiously, Maranda, which topped in 2012, was not ranked, reportedly due to irregularities.

Obiero said he had expected to perform well. “I used to top my class from Standard Four. I also credit my performance to my twin brother at Maseno with whom we used to read,” he said. His brother scored an A (minus) of 80 points.

Obiero said he wants to study Medicine at the University of Nairobi. “I thank my mother who has inspired me from childhood. Though we come from a humble family, she motivated and encouraged me to work hard.”

High mean score

Kivuva, who was the third best candidate said she wants to study Medicine and specialise in Gynecology. “My advice to other candidates is that success does not come on a silver platter. It’s about hard work and commitment,” she said at her family’s Kileleshwa home.

Knec confirmed Maranda was not ranked because of examination irregularities. Borus Norah Chelagat of Precious Blood and Osoro Brian of Nairobi School posted a mean score of 86.97 and 86.96 to close cluster of the best five candidates in the 2013 KCSE exam.

Alliance High School, Maranda and Nairobi School each had two candidates in the top ten list as Nakuru’s Kabarak, Precious Blood (Nairobi), Chavakali High School (Vihiga) and Kenya High School each had one candidate in the top ten list. In the top 100 category, Alliance High School produced 22 candidates followed by Maseno School with 11 candidates. Kabarak had eight while Chavakali and Kisii had seven each.

Nairobi School had six as Kapsabet Boys, Kanga, Mang’u, Precious Blood, Maranda and Kenya High each had three. Maryhill Girls, Moi Girls Eldoret, Nakuru and Nyeri High each had two candidates in the top 100 category. In the top-ten category, Precious Blood, a county school, was ranked number three, posting a mean score of 79.6 as Kapsabet Boys made a surprise comeback, posting a mean score of 79.

Chavakali, which was recently elevated to national status also posted a mean grade of 77 to make a surprise appearance in the top ten category.

Chavakali was ranked position eight with a mean grade of A (minus). Last year, the school was not even among the top 100 schools nationally. Prof Kaimenyi said despite a drop in last year’s results, the candidates scored more quality grades. He said the number of Grade A (plain) increased to 2,722 from 1,975 the previous year.

“This means that more candidates acquired quality grades in 2013,” he said. The Cabinet Secretary also said some 123, 365 candidates scored the minimum university entry grade of C (plus) and above. This means that of the 446,696 candidates who sat last year’s examination, more than 300,000 did not get the minimum university entry grade.

 “The overall performance of candidates in the 2013 KCSE exam remained relatively at the same level compared to that of 2012 because 27.36 of the candidates obtained the minimum university entry grade of C+ compared to 28.36 in 2012,” said Kaimenyi.

He was, however, quick to note that candidates who will not get admission to either public or private universities should take up places in tertiary colleges.

But despite more quality grades, examination irregularities still went up, even as Knec swung into action. Kaimenyi revealed he was saddened by the rise in examination cheating.

“In the year 2013, a total of 3,353 candidates, representing 0.7 per cent of the total number of candidates were involved in cheating… it was very disturbing to see some head teachers,  and education officials perpetuating cheating,” regretted Prof Kaimenyi.

Perpetuate cheating

He said collusion was the method used last year to cheat in the examinations. He also cited use of mobile phones and pre-prepared notes. The CS also blamed the Judiciary for the slow process in prosecuting examination cheats and threatened that from next year candidates involved in cheating will be barred from writing exams for three years.

 “I will therefore make a request to the Chief Justice for fast-tracking of the cases so that the convictions of those found to be guilty can serve as a deterrent measure to those who may engage in the same acts in future,” said Kaimenyi.

The CS said Taita Taveta, Lamu, Turkana, Bomet, Laikipia, Kajiado and Baringo were the seven counties that did not have cheating incidents.

On subject performance, last year’s results saw an improvement in 14 subjects compared to 12 the previous year. The CS announced Kiswahili, Biology, Physics, History and Government, CRE and Business studies recorded major improvements.

Kaimenyi said English, Mathematics, Chemistry and Agriculture recorded a decline in performance.  He said English recorded the worst decline in performance.

“This decline has been attributed to the increased use of sheng (slang language) in our schools, the consistent use of electronic communication devices such as mobile phones and computers that have done away with the need to construct sentences and spell words correctly due to ‘spell checking’ and ‘predictive text’ capabilities,” he said.