Truant teachers to blame for decline in KCPE performance in public schools, CS Fred Matiang’i

NAIROBI: Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has decried the decline in performance of Public Schools in the just released results for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

In the results, public schools’ mean score declined by 7 points from 187.8 to 180.7 while that of private schools increased by a point from 229.4 to 230 in 2015.

Matiang’i attributed the decline to teacher absenteeism citing that independent surveys even by the World Bank have shown that cases of teachers missing from schools are up to 70 per cent in some counties.

The CS asked County Directors of Education to collect the released results and analyse them in order to find a lasting solution to the matter he termed critical. He also promised to cooperate with the teachers’ employer TSC to find ways of handling truancy that he said has contributed to a three-year consecutive decline in KCPE results for public schools.

However, National Chair of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) Omboko Milemba defended teachers and attributed this year’s decline to a five-week strike that happen in the third term leading to exams.

“We asked for a postponement of the exams to better prepare the candidates but that was not accorded,” Omboko said.

On the thorny matter of ranking candidates and schools, CS Matiang’i said the issue will be discussed as part of a comprehensive review of Kenya’s education curriculum which is to be launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta latter in January 2016.