Nyanza’s Kisii region is on everyone’s lips after the recently released Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) results were announced by Education CS Ezekiel Machogu.
Schools in the Kisii region posted unbelievably good results that have elicited a debate as to whether the results are a product of sheer hard work and the possibility of improvement or they could be the products of massive examination leakages.
Comparison of 2021 and 2022 KCSE results of ‘improved’ schools
While the debate rages on, school heads in the parts of the region, like Luo Nyanza, and other parts of the country that didn’t feature in the list of magically improved schools have found themselves on the receiving end with tags of incompetency being heaped on them. But is this really fair?
Mental health cases are rife in universities, and the same is said of massive failures and dropout rates in select high-flier courses such as medicine, dental surgery, engineering and so forth, and the root is in the KCSE results that match the magical performances in KCSE to courses in universities.
Like many other politicians and national leaders who have faulted the KCSE results, former CAS David Osiany called on schools and school heads to value honesty above all else, even in the face of the temptation to excel. He wrote,
There is HONOR in HONESTY. CONGRATULATIONS to the KCSE students who may not have posted great FAKE results, but GENUINELY earned their A, B, C or even D. It’s honorable to know that your result is from genuine effort. I promise it will PAY OFF!
A Facebook post by former CAS David Osiany insisting on the value of honesty
Principals whose schools haven’t posted magically impressive results but have maintained a consistent improvement in results aren’t failures, they are the heroes who should be celebrated for walking the talk of real African education that has integrity as a core pillar.
