Exam scores do not fairly represent true abilities

In honour of the KCSE exams results released this week, Business Week takes a break from the social entrepreneurship series and raises some controversial points on secondary school graduates’ success.

Kenya produces phenomenal graduates both from high school and university. The World Bank shows our Kenyan youth literacy rates at 82 per cent.

Our literacy capabilities rival those of developed nations. Further, in only five years, Kenya grew its percentage of our total population completing a university education from three per cent to four per cent.

Throughout my 14 years so far in Kenya, I always found our nation as a refreshing blend of intense thirst for knowledge mixed with an arguably unhealthy obsession with KCSE scores.

Many nations do not emphasize standardised scoring on national examinations and most of the world do not even include where one went to secondary school on CVs.

However, here in Kenya, we continue the British colonial fixation over one’s secondary school and performance on one examination. The fixation continues to the workplace during recruitment.

Since such weight in recruitment lies on the KCSE score, I ponder whether a high KCSE score gives any indication as to whether someone will perform any better in the workplace.

A plethora of studies from around the world show biases in national examinations. Some studies out of North America show that a student’s score on a national examination can only predict a 10 per cent probability of their success in their first year of university.

Numbers drop below 10 per cent when predicting success later in life, thus meaning that someone’s national examination results matter little and do not fairly represent someone’s true abilities.

Further, research out of Bristol University in the UK as well as the University of Nairobi show students in rural district schools suffer from instruction in languages other than English and then take the KCSE in English.

Additionally, life tragedies or sickness unfairly affect performance. Then, activists advocate for more transparency from the Kenya National Examinations Council on who advises on KCP and KCSE writing and which schools such advisors emanate from.

Now, I do not discount KCSE entirely. KCSE exists as an extraordinary tool to raise the level of learning in our nation, but should only be viewed as a minor tool among many tools in determining university admission and job acceptance.

Over the years before entering academia full-time, I had the pleasure to serve as a CEO of financial institutions as well as a director of NGOs. I initially preferred to hire university graduates who performed well earlier in their lives on the KCSE exam.

Then, I started noticing a trend. Students who received the grade of an “A” often did not do so well on the job and I often had to terminate their employment.

Once I started hiring employees with lower grades from secondary school, ones who received between a “C-” and a “C+”, I noticed that they often made better employees.

Puzzled, I failed to reconcile the negative correlation between KCSE performance and employment success. Then, while still a fairly new arrival to Kenya at the time, I began to understand how to dissect the secondary school results in light of where someone studied.

I found that a secondary school student who achieved a “C+” from a rural district school seemed more capable than a “B+” student from a national school. Over my years in management, I noticed even deeper trends.

So, what course of action do I recommend for multinational firms entering Kenya who seek to hire new staff? Define the job description clearly.

I advise hiring an “A” student from a national school under the following working conditions: position requires attending meetings and then regurgitating information back flawlessly, operate in an over-organised bureaucratic institution.

Conversely, if you desire an independent worker who needs no hand holding, can dig and investigate to yield results for your firm, head out and sell your products, or find creative solutions to complex problems, then hire a “C+” student from a district school.

More often than not, the district school student received very little support in preparation for the national examination. He therefore, became accustomed to figuring things out for himself and fighting in a system stacked against him.

Conversely, struggles and perceptions might generate a self-fulfilling prophecy of lower self confidence that may afflict alumni for decades.

Graduates from national schools may often benefit exponentially from the commonly rumoured “leakage” as well as receiving the best of the best teachers and facilities.

So how might a national school student fair in a challenging workplace where performance matters every hour of every day and everyone competes on a level playing field?

Conversely, national schools often hold students from more well-connected families and, upon completion, the national school alumni may pull from a wider pool of successful networks.

For multinational firms, I recommend for applicants who attended a national school, consider alumni with an “A” on their KCSE.

Further, prospective employees who came from provincial schools, I recommend that firms consider graduates with a “B” or higher.

Then finally, a potential staff member who attended a district school, I advise firms to consider students with a “C” or above.

A prospective employee with traumatic life events and a deeply rural district school, I even advise that a “D+” may not spell career doom and instead, that individual may or may not thrive in a more accommodating environment.

Our stereotypes disadvantage district school students struggling in difficult situations. Look at hiring a diversity of employees from all types of schools and experiences.

Kenya produces brilliant students from national, provincial, and district schools alike. Get to know the reasons behind someone’s KCSE score. Use the KCSE results as one tool among many in your arsenal for hiring applicants.

Prof Scott is the Director of the New Economy Venture Accelerator at USIU’s Chandaria School of Business and Colorado State University. Contacts: [email protected] or follow on Twitter: @ScottProfessor.