why coast yield dismal results in national exams

In Kenya, good performance in national examinations is the key to assured access to institutions of higher learning and eventually to securing gainful employment.

The persistent mass failures in national examinations observed in many counties in coast over the years are worrying to students, parents, teachers and other stakeholders in the education sector.

The ranking of performance bases in counties have put the coastal counties be among the botton.

In 2011 coast province Coast Province performed poorly with Kwale, Kilifi, Lamu, Taita-Taveta and Tana River counties scooping the last position in KCPE ranking nationally with no big margin in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examinations.

In the recently released KCPE results, public schools were ranked poorly as compared to private schools, with only two candidates emerging out of the top ten best students from Mombasa county region.

Mombasa topped the region at position 35 having a mean score of 238.Kilifi, Taita, Lamu and Kwale, occupied position 40, 41, 42, and 43 respectively.

Tana River County was ranked position 44 with a mean score of 211 out of the 47 schools, with the highest student in Tana River County scored 404 marks, with the percentage of boys to girls being 70 percent against 30 percent.

However Mombasa County produced the best female candidate nationally in last year KCSE, Abdulkarim Tasneem Hasham of Sheikh Khalifa was the top girl nationally, with a performance index of 86.817.

With the county dispensation, education stakeholders are calling on the need for quick intervention to arrest this problem which they say is a threat to the growth of coastal counties economic growth.

According to Professor Gabriel Katana Gona, inadequate learning facilities, poor relationship between stakeholders in running of learning institution are among the reason for dismal performance in coast.

Gona called on the need for the county government to come up with clear on proper education kitty beneficial to all the residents particularly the needy.

Gona took issue with the high cases of indispline among school going children and added that some stakeholders are yet to take fully their responsibility in driving education sector.

“The worse problem is lack of misunderstanding between the stakeholders and wrangles between teachers, parents and management boards are common, we should sit on around table and see where we might have gone wrong instead of trading accusation.” Said the professor.

According to him poor attitude on education and indiscipline among students also contributed to aggravating poor performance adding that a large population of  parents lack formal education a move that said have contributed to the lukewarm attitude they exhibited towards the schooling of their children.

National council for science and technology secretary, Professor Shaukat Abdulrazak agrees with the scholar that the performance in both primary and secondary national examinations have never been very encouraging.

Shaukat said there is a general poor performance in mathematics and science subjects as revealed by a research report done by universities at coast in 2009; he note that the national transition rate from primary to secondary stands at 57% against the targeted 70% in the vision 2030 blueprint.

He revealed that only about 3% of students attain C+ and above in KCSE examinations from coast region with high about 60% drop out rate from primary schools.

Pupils searching for water after class in Samburu Kwale county

Similar sentiments were shared by Francis Mvoyi, a retired education officer said illiteracy among many parents has made the children lack backup when out of school.

He revealed that lack of role model among school going children has made the students lack vision for their future as are used to ordinary life as the elite are nowhere to motivate them.

Mvoyi warned that unless the trend changes coast region should not expect good results soon as many tend to relax.

“As we cry for good performance in education, there is need to have more school based forum to discuss and dialogue with the children on importance of education as majority are found of coursing disturbance in the running of school particularly during mock examination periods.” Noted the retired officer.

why coast yield dismal results in national examination Mvoyi stressed that the unrest that is always witnessed in secondary school is due to unpreparedness to exams and lack of understanding among the students on the importance of mock examinations.

According to him the majority of the political leaders that have been ruling in the coast region are selfish to talk more on education as some did not excel in education hence cannot encourage the young generation to work hard in school.

The increase in drug abuse among school children is causing sleepless night to many coastal parents with drug peddlers finding unique way to deliver the drugs to the students either at home or even at school.

Unlike the old days where tobacco (ugoro in Swahili) was mostly used by old men and women as stimulant, the drug now has established roots among the young generation including students who have nicknamed “memory card”

Just like marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol among other drugs, Ugoro is now easily accessed by students despite the ongoing campaigns against drug abuse and their effect to human life.

The use of such drugs has been attributed to the increase indispline cases among children and according to Mvoyi there is need to punish students found guilty.

The Kenya national union of teachers Mombasa county branch, is on the view that lack of adequate teachers, overcrowding in public schools are just the few problems the central government need to address.

The County secretary general, Dan Aloo, said despite efforts to come up with more schools and particularly the CDF commissioned schools, lack of qualified teaching staff is a major problem as some are forced to use form four leavers.

He noted that during last year’s national examination both primary and secondary the security concern played a pivotal role in the dismal performance.

“The debate whether examination was to be done or not due to the threat by MRC was a blow as led to deployment of heavy security personnel to examination centers in the six counties. What was the message sent to the candidates; there was tension and worse was to the students who had never come to face with police officers.” Said Aloo

He said the Tana clashes impacted negatively to the education sector in the area and performance in coast generally.

Aloo said tension during examination should be tried to be reduced as can lead to poor performance among bright students.

The Mombasa knut boss called on the need to increase the teaching staff adding that Mombasa county had a shortage of over 300 teachers, with the few available forced to teach beyond their capacity crowded classroom.

A sign post of Isaac Nyondo primary, among the first schools in Rabai

“The introduction of free primary education has made many public schools to register more students than the teachers can handle. The removal of the feeding program in school has worsen the situation as children cannot concentrate in class when hungry.” Noted Aloo

The availability of basic resources like water has made many children and women to spend most of their time searching for this precious commodity.

Areas of kwale, Kilifi, Tana River among other counties are known to water problems and school going children are forced to balance their time for school work and domestic duties.

Over the years performance of girls has been the poorest with attribute to more house hold jobs given hence be exhausted for personal studies.

End.