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Showing posts with label KCSE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KCSE. Show all posts

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Worst High School's in Kenya

  Well, worst, isn't strong enough in this case. Its an indication of how bad things are, education wise, in this country. Some 60%  (213.438) of all candidates in last year's KCSE scored below a C-. Given the fact that the minimum acceptable grade to get into University is a C+, its not wrong to assume that 70% of all candidates who sat the test wouldn't even get accepted to a university. Not mention the fact that the curriculum is outdated, imparts no knowledge and doesn't prepare students for the rigours of post-secondary education but thats another blogpost.

You might be surprised to learn that most of the worst high schools in the country lie outside of NEP in places that are considered to have better resources. Out of the worst 50 schools in Kenya, Nyanza contributed 17, central had 10, 7 from Eastern, Coast had 6 and 5 from Nairobi. The Rift Valley had two schools in this category while NEP had just one school.

St. Marks High School of Central is officially the worst school in Kenya boasting an average of 1.58. Out of its 76 candidates, 39 scored E, 29 D- & 7D

Kyulu Sec of Eastern had a mean score of 1.64 with 10 E

Our very own Bute Girls rounded up the top 3 with 22E & 13D-

Guru Nanak of Eastleigh Nairobi, a profiteering Indian owned sham of a school that defrauds Somalis was ranked fourth with a mean score of 1.8 and a massive 18 E's. This school is well known to most of Garissians because of a lot of our boys & girls go there.

While this list does not provide enough information to form an educated opinion since its mainly composed of rudimentary outliers, I was a bit surprised  by the fact that NEP didn't feature prominently in this list. My deduction is that we have very few high schools per capita compared to other places and  that our weakest students are dropped off in lower grades. Furthermore, this indicates the lazy conflation that NEPians are OK with mediocrity might after all have some truth to it.

   Stories gleaned off from the Saturday Nation.

Monday, February 28, 2011

NEP's KCSE 2010 Results

  Recently released KCSE results for last year continue to depict the sorry state of the education sector in NEP with huge disparities between the province and the rest of the country. Furthermore, girls continue to lag behind boys at a disproportionate level, with this year registering only five girls in the top 100 positions compared to KCPE where there were at least 34 girls.
  While there are socio-economic reasons for the gross disparities between NEP & the rest of Kenya, its not fair to blame everything on these causalities. It will not be unjust if one said that students who choose to study Arabic, IRE & History should be expected to score an A in those subjects. That will boost their average by about 36 points. One of the reasons for us lagging behind other places is due to the current cadre of students who are nothing more than a bunch of disengaged, self entitled brats. Heavy drug abuse, disregard for teachers and a culture of illiteracy also play a role. This serves to alienate the very few students who are willing to work hard for their good grades and the even fewer teachers who are sincerely trying to impart knowledge.

I think its way beyond time for some soul searching & self flagellation. Time and again, students from NEP who go to national schools and national Universities perform at par with their classmates despite their background. That said, I would recommend to any parent or adult who has a child/younger brother/sister in school to read "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom,"  a book that  vividly describes the successes of a culture that puts a lot of emphasis on education and sees it as the only ticket to a better future. It's either that or we swap our schools for Madrassa's because they are certainly not generating any net value.

 I was willing to cut the primary kids some slack because they performed relatively better than their secondary counterparts but all in all, this is a disgrace.

 The top 10 candidates in the province were:

 Abdow Mohamed Osman (79.2)                                 Garissa High

 ABDIRAHMAN IBRAHIM ALI (78.9)                      Mandera Sec

 AHMED DEKOW MOHAMED  (                             Young Muslim

 HASSAN MOHAMED FARAH                                  Mandera Sec

 SULEIMAN BASHIR SALAH                                     Young Muslim

 MOHAMED ALI DAGOL                                          Mandera Sec

 MOHAMUD MUHUMED                                            Garissa High

ADEN ABDI DIIS                                                       Young Muslim

MOHAMUD IBRAHIM                                                Mandera Sec

ABDISHAKUR ABDISALAN                                      Mandera Sec

The best girl in the province was Raha Abdi Salah of NEP Girls ranked overall at position 22.
Mandera Sec School took 35% of all positions in the top 100 province wide.
Garissa High & Mandera Sec made up about 59% of all students in the top 100.

As soon as I get the time, I'll post the full rankings.

UPDATE





KCSE 2010