According to Ezekiel Machogu, the Kenyan Education Cabinet Secretary, it is painful that more than 48,000 learners got a mean grade of E in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.
Indeed, it is more painful that many of these candidates are now giving the colleges placement a wide berth.
This combination reveals an unsightly bundle that the Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang has called “a huge waste”.
A huge waste because it is safe to conclude that the candidates who scored the low grades are unknowingly ruling themselves out of higher education in artisan and craft courses that would make them more useful in nation building.
In the ongoing courses applications, the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has raised the alarm. “Apllicants with D+ and E are still very low, and we encourage them to apply,” warned the KUCCPS chief executive Agnes Mercy Wahome when she extended the deadline to February 26, 2024.\
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Do the E-scorers know that the Kenyan government allows Class 8 graduates to train in artisan courses that give them better opportunities?
Already, the Kenyan Cabinet has paved the way for the recognition of prior learning that will give all the artisans without formal training a chance to regularise their qualifications and access various contracts and formal employment. Some of these artisans have no Form Four certificate, showing the government’s deliberate effort at improving their lives.
If Class 8 graduates have a chance at furthering their education, anyone with the Form Four qualification has a better chance, the mean grade notwithstanding.
While Ds and Es are the lowest scores in the KCSE exam, has the government invested in preparing this group to go for their share in further education? Is low self-esteem blocking them from joining these technical schools and improving their lives?
While some perceive D and E scorers as a failed lot, the government must go out of its way, through career counselling in schools and courses placement agency to ensure all the Form Four graduates further their education.
One, this calls for revamping of the schools career counselling through the teachers or a collaboration with private service providers.
Two, the KUCCPS can run seasonal campaigns, especially close to the courses application, telling the candidates, parents and guardians how to apply and where to get help.
Already the KUCCPS is collecting at least Sh3,000 per candidate who goes all the way to join a university, TVET or vocational training college. This gives it more than Sh1 billion revenues from the applications and admissions alone; a fraction of this collection can go into sensitisation and awareness creation.
It, therefore, means that the State or KUCCPS in particular must have a programme to direct all the Form Four graduates into the further education pipeline that promises milk and honey.
While the low grades may be painful, they should not fester into a “a huge waste,” as Dr Kipsang said recently.
editor@aplain.co.ke
