Kenyan don expresses concern over increasing As in national exams

Head teachers admire effigy of human skeleton which is used for teaching Biology practicals during Kenya Secondary Schools heads Association 40th annual conference at Wild waters in Mombasa. Over 4000 teachers are in the conference. (PHOTO OMONDI ONYANGO/STANDARD)

The growing number of students scoring grade A in national examination is worrying educationists in the country, secondary school heads were told yesterday.

A university don yesterday said the number of A grade students had risen, diluting the topmost mark of excellence.

"There are too many As nowadays and one may be forced to ask whether Kenyan children have all of a sudden become so intelligent," said Prof Laban Ayiro, director of quality assurance at Moi University.

According to 2013 KCSE results analysis, 2,690 students scored A (plain) while 8,837 scored A- (minus).

He blamed the country's examination system for the trend and asked for a paradigm shift in evaluation of students.

"Nowadays if a student revises 10 past papers, you can be assured that they will score an A. Applications and synthesis are lacking in examination questions thus diluting the value of marks awarded," he said.

Prof Ayiro said students who scored the topmost grade in the past, exhibited the same brilliance in their performance in higher institutions.

"Nowadays, the A students come to the universities and you can clearly see that they are struggling to move on to the next stage. The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) owes the country answers," he said.

School heads who spoke to The Standard admitted that the growing number of students who attain the top score had diluted the grade A.

"Nowadays it is like a joke. Some schools have over 100 students scoring grade A during release of national examinations," said a principal from Coast region.

Another head from Central attributed the "problem" to examination irregularities.

"We can say cheating cases have been on the rise, and that teachers can predict the questions being set by KNEC," he said.

Sources at Knec, however, said the number of candidates sitting examinations had gone up, explaining the rising number of As.

"You see the As have never even gone beyond 0.8 of the total candidature. The same percentage in 1970s is the same today," said the Knec officials who asked not to be named.

Addressing the heads yesterday, Knec Head of Research and Quality Assurance Joyce Sabari said with the curriculum reforms, examinations changes would also be realised.

She said examinations in the country should be reformed to march the aspirations of education goals.

The scholar also said there was need for a major paradigm shift where national would be the epitome of innovation.

She said the curriculum for national schools should be made more challenging to help produce innovators.

"The innovators we are looking for must be produced by the national schools. Let them take a more challenging curriculum than the other schools," said Sabari.

she said like in other countries, a given category of schools had been selected for science, engineering and mathematics education to produce top-notch innovations.

The views emerged during a panel discussion on re-evaluating the relevance and quality of country's education.

Curriculum review took a centre stage of the discussion with a unanimous stand that the previous commissions of inquiry have enough proposals needed to turn around the county's education focus.

Other panellists at the discussion were House Education Committee Chairperson Sabina Chege, her committee member Cecilia Ngetich, Senate Committee on Education Chairperson Daniel Karaba and Okwach Abagi of Centre for Research and Development.

Ongoing review

Kenya Institute of Curriculum Education Director Juan Julius said his team has done a comprehensive analysis of all the previous commission reports and noted that they would be used during the ongoing curriculum revision.

"The first curriculum reform was done in 1984. The last curriculum review was done in 2013. And this year, we are doing another curriculum reform. The point is that we are changing the whole philosophy of education in Kenya," said Dr Juan.

He said nurturing every child's talent by creating alternative pathways will radically empower all children.