Higher KCSE pass rate as pressure mounts on universities, Helb

A record 483,630 students began receiving their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination results Tuesday following a unique ceremony which, once again, did not include school or candidate rankings.

The event, held at Nairobi’s Mitihani House, noted that the 2014 KCSE exam group is the pioneer class of the Free Primary Education programme.

Last year’s candidature represented an 8.3 per cent increase when compared to the 446,696 students who sat the exam in the previous year.

“This increase…is the highest in the last three years and is attributed to the fact that the cohort of candidates consists of the first beneficiaries of the free primary and secondary programmes, which came into effect in 2003 and 2011 respectively,” said Education Cabinet secretary Professor Jacob Kaimenyi during the release of the results.

Thirty per cent of the candidates (149,717 students) attained the minimum university entry mark of C+ or better, a 27.5 per cent increase from 123,365 last year. Of these, 88,299 were male (59 per cent) while 61,418 were female.

The higher pass rate piles pressure on universities, which are struggling to keep up with record admissions, and the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb), which has had to cut bursary amounts to students due to increased demand.

READ: Helb in cash plea as KCSE finalists hit record high

Helb said it expects to receive more than the 110,000 applications it got last year, even as it revealed that it has asked Treasury to double its 2015/6 allocations to Sh9.3 billion.

Candidates who registered an overall mean grade of A were 3,073, a 0.61 per cent increase from the 2,722 who had this top score in the 2013 exam.

Students’ performance improved in 15 out of the 31 subjects offered in the KCSE examination, including English, Kiswahili, Chemistry, Biology and History and Government. Performance declined in 10 subjects including Mathematics Alternative A, Physics, Business Studies and Music.

Professor Kaimenyi singled out Mathematics Alternative A’s continued decline categorising it is “alarming” since the subject is one of the main ones used to pick students who proceed to university.

“This is of great concern given that Mathematics is a key requirement in most scientific-related courses and careers and the fact that government has invested heavily in the subject,” he said.

Some 1,090 special needs students sat for the exam with 180 of them attaining C+ and above, proof that “disability is not inability”, Prof Kaimenyi said. Five of these candidates attained the A grade while another 14 posted an A- result.

Cheating

Exam irregularities declined in the 2014 examination with 2,975 candidates being implicated, a 22 per cent decrease from the previous 3,812. Some 2,410 candidates colluded during the exam, 209 were caught with unauthorized materials while 179 others carried mobile phones into the exam rooms.

Five national schools were also involved in the vice.

“If the crème de la crème of our country can engage in cheating, where does that leave other students?” Professor Kaimenyi posed.

“The situation was made worse by the fact that some head teachers and teachers… were at the forefront of perpetuating the vice.”

To check their results, candidates are required to send their index numbers to 22252 on their mobile phones.