Bottom school lacks infrastructure

Written By:KBC Reporters/KNA,    Posted: Thu, Dec 29, 2011

Nyakemincha Primary School lacks sound management,Physical facilities and competent curriculum delivery Nyakemincha Primary,a Public School in Nyamira county lived to its dubious meaning of its name, 'With a Tail' by becoming the last nationally. The school's dismal examination performance from West Mugirango Constituency was not a surprise to stakeholders who claimed they expected the inevitable. According a resident interviewed, the school lacked sound management, physical facilities and competent curriculum delivery systems. The resident further claimed that weak pupils had been registered for the KCPE with approval of the school management committee. According to Education Minister Prof. Sam Ongeri who released the 2011 KCPE results, the school had a 119.26% mean score while privately owned St. Peter's Preparatory school registered 137%. Still on poor performance, residents of Kwale town have reacted in shock and disbelief at the KCPE results which have placed the County at the second bottom position nationwide. The county attained a mean score of 218.1 to clinch position 46 out of 47, beating only Tana River County also at the Coast Province. In gender issues the county is one of the 14 counties named by the Education Minister Prof. Sam Ongeri as having a big disparity between the number of girls and boys who sat for KCPE. Only 43 per cent of the candidates were girls the rest- 57 per cent were boys. Gender disparity is not new in the county and the number of girls enrolled in primary schools often dwindles as a result of early marriages, early pregnancies and child labour. Education Minister Sam Ongeri pointed out that the Coast region had performed poorly with Kilifi, Lamu,Taita Taveta, Kwale and Tana River counties  taking the bottom five positions respectively. Releasing the results, the education minister said that no meaningful development can be achieved when more than half the population is disadvantaged. Kwale has the lowest development indicators with maternal and child morbidity and mortality rates being higher than the national average. The Kenya Health Demographic Survey 2008/09 states that women education is directly related to the health of her family. A woman with a higher level of education is able to meet the health, sanitation and nutrition needs of her children reducing mortality and morbidity. Kwale was also cited as one of the counties with over age candidates with 2076 students of over 19 years of age having sat the exam. Of the bottom five primary schools two, Muhaka primary school and Makamini primary school are from Kwale County. Efforts to reach the three Kwale County district education officers from Msambweni, Kinango and Matuga bore no fruit as none was in the office nor could they be reached on phone.  Meanwhile Machakos District Education Officer (D.E.O) Richard Midamba laments that high enrollment in primary schools as a result of free primary program has been attributed to the dismal performance public schools nationally. Briefing KNA in his office on Thursday, Midamba lamented that with large pupil population; teachers were overworked and had very little time to adequately prepare the candidates. Speaking on Wednesday Education Minister Sam Ongeri said that net enrolment rate in 2005 was 83 percent and by last year it had risen to 96 percent in just five years while for ECDE (Early Childhood and Development Education) rose from 57.9 percent to 61 percent last year. Midamba, however, praised the public schools in the area for having performed better than private schools in the just announced Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE). He observed that though private schools had outshone the public ones nationally, the top performing schools and candidates in the area are from public schools. Machakos County ranked position 27 nationally which the DEO described as a fair position as everyone competes for position one. He added that male students did better than their female counterparts adding that only two girls were among the top ten students in the county. Mr. Midamba challenged female pupils to work hard to compete with the males since the constitution offers equal chances to both genders, The DEO also reported that Kusyomuomo Primary school in Machakos County results for social studies and religious studies were cancelled for suspected collusion to cheat. The pupils will get their results minus the one subject considered to have been marred with irregularities.