Unmask Form One selection, implement basic education requirement

NAIROBI: The formulation of Education policies emanates from the Constitution of Kenya 2010, Basic Education Act of Parliament and Education Commissions and Task Forces. The implementation of specific recommendations ensuing from these sources such as change in the Form One selection process, should not have been implemented without subjecting it to analysis of possible implementation effect. As of now, there is a considerable disquiet among parents and other stakeholders regarding the Form One selection criteria.

The new approach, which is meant to address, among other considerations, affirmative action for pupils from disadvantaged regions getting opportunities to join specific national schools, seems to have resulted in some of those who performed well ending up in schools they consider inferior. This seems to be a classic case of how laudable aims come unstuck when the selection processes are shrouded in secrecy, despite the constitutional need for transparency and accountability in matters of public interest.

Ranking of candidates’ performance in merit lists as part of school performance data, has in the past, been justified on the basis of a common curriculum at primary school and qualified teachers who are deployed in all primary schools centrally by the teachers‘ employer.

And standardisation of pupils external examination scores to facilitate comparison of different primary school cohorts where bright pupils are highlighted from average and below average ones, and in which the above average and average ones stand to benefit from limited secondary school places.

Hence, failure to use ranking of candidates’ performance for the purpose of selection goes against the current primary school assessment principle and policy as allowed by the Kenya National Examinations Council, unless reviewed appropriately.

Some of the performance observations, which were hurriedly rehearsed and bandied as factors militating against ranking during the release of KCPE results last year, such as class size, teacher-pupil ratio, and teacher qualifications, have been shown not to have any significant effect on candidates‘ performance from available research data.

The practical subjects, which would have had school-based facility implications and entailed unjustified performance disparities such as music, arts and crafts and home science were found to have overloaded the learners in primary school, and have since been scrapped from the primary school curriculum.

The Government through the Ministry of Education Science and Technology, may do well to start addressing some of the following long-term educational policy requirements:

Give full effect to the implementation of compulsory basic education that is a constitutional right for the Kenyan child’s access to primary and secondary education.

This will require implementation of open access for children from Early Childhood Education to primary and primary pupils open access to secondary education by abolishing KCPE examination; Facilitate open access by helping to establish and fund new secondary schools, which will receive pupils from feeder primary schools.

This will ensure no child is locked out of secondary education as a constitutional right to basic education due to limited school places besides the government‘s current efforts to fund ‚free‘ primary and secondary education.

With open access the classification of secondary schools into national, county and sub-county governments will need to be phased out and such schools appropriately equipped so that every Kenyan child has equal access to quality secondary education.

The traditional national schools continued to perpetuate elitism by being allowed to select the best performing candidates from primary schools who later dominate university places after attaining good Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, qualifications while other schools selected from the remnants.

The majority of the newly upgraded schools to national status, on the other hand, have yet to prove themselves worth of the status despite tax payers money already pumped into them since it takes time for national schools to establish a tradition of good performance.

The writer is an Education, Assessment and Evaluation consultant