Why public schools had a poor showing

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By JULIUS SIGEI jsigei@ke.nationmedia.com and OLIVER MUSEMBI osembi@gmail.com
Posted  Thursday, December 29  2011 at  22:00

IN SUMMARY

• Knut boss blames lack of adequate teachers and facilities in centres

Candidates from private schools took the lion’s share of the top 50 positions nationally in this year’s Standard Eight examinations.

Less than 10 of the top 50 top candidates came from public schools.

Kenya National Union of Teachers’ chairman Wilson Sossion attributed the poor showing by public schools to continued failure by the government to employ teachers commensurate with the number of pupils.

Mr Sossion also said that the disparity was as a result of the heavy investments in private schools as opposed to the meagre allocation by the government to public schools.

“The fact is that there are two societies now,” he said. “What do you expect the Sh1,050 per child allocation by the government to do as compared to as high as Sh100,000 that rich parents pump into private schools per term?” Mr Sossion asked.

Introduction of Free Primary Education in 2003 has seen a phenomenal growth in KCPE examination candidature from 587,961 in 2003 to 776,214 this year, yet the number of teachers and government allocation per child has remained the same.

This is seen as a continued disadvantage of children from poor backgrounds because those who do well would be admitted to the few good secondary schools, leaving them in schools where they have little chance of excelling.

Last year, the Ministry of Education attempted to address the imbalance between the two categories by introducing changes to the quota system, which resulted in candidates from public schools taking three-quarters of the 4,000 slots in national schools.

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Education PS James ole Kiyapi has, however, scrapped the contentious quota system, which has once again restored the advantage enjoyed by private schools.

Private schools have also been accused of employing unorthodox methods like teaching exams and rote learning as opposed to content. (READ:KCPE: Private schools still on top)

This has been fuelled by the fact that schools which do well will attract a higher number of pupils, which translates to more money for owners.

Race for money

It is this race for money which has seen some private schools crop up on top of bars and in market centres, which are not conducive to learning
Meanwhile, private schools in Ruiru District dominated this year’s KCPE results in Kiambu County, taking seven of the top 10 slots.

Apart from Githunguri’s Plainsview Academy, which topped the chart with a mean score of 403.48 marks, the other private schools in the top five included Lily Academy (391.2), Excel Academy (381.58), Wankan (380.03), and Bethlehem Academy (377.64) — all in Ruiru.

Ruiru district education officer Roseline Litaba said private learning institutions have better pupil-teacher ratios and learning facilities than public ones and hence the good performance.

“For instance, in the whole of Kahawa Sukari and Kahawa Wendani areas, there is only one public school known as Ndia-ini Primary School,” the Ms Litaba said.

Aeronautic engineer

Gichia Louis Njogu of Wankan was one of the top performers in the county with 427 points.

The second-born attributed his success to hard work and prayers.

He would like to join Mang’u High School and study aviation and plans to become an aeronautic engineer.

However, a number of candidates in public school schools had a good showing of themselves, including Wangari James Kagunda of Mwiki Primary School who posted 403 marks.

The school, which has a population of 2,054 pupils, had 266 KCPE candidates this year.