Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha announced the national 2019 KCSE results on Wednesday, December 18.
As Magoha read the names of the top schools in terms of producing A students, from the Kenya High School to Kapsabet Boys High School, all the way to Moi Girls High School, one could not help but wonder what happened to the academic heavyweights that for decades had proven to be unassailable.
If you asked any Kenyan pupil what secondary schools the would have loved to join for their high school studies back in the day, in unison, you would get nearly similar answers, however, it seems not to be the tale any more.
What happened to the Starehe Boys Center? Since the demise of its founder and philanthropist, Geoffrey Griffin, the Starehe Boys Center has faced mixed fortunes in academic performance as reported by the Daily Nation on May 28, 2018.
What about the Starehe Girls Center, Lenana School, Nairobi School, Mang'u High School, Friends School Kamusinga and Kakamega High School? Do pupils desire to join these institutions as much as they did a decade ago?
On December 2, The Standard reported that Pangani High School, Kapsabet Boys High School, the Alliance High Schools, and Moi Girls High School Eldoret were the most popular schools most preferred by KCPE 2019 candidates to pursue their education from 2020.
This gave a clear indication that a section of the schools once identified as the very best in the country was on the regress, or rather, their popularity was on the downward spiral and based on KCPE results from the last few years, their performance too.
In the 2018 KCSE results released on December 21, 2018, the list of the top ten schools in KCSE performance nationwide was graced by among others Strathmore School, Moi Tea Girls Secondary School, Kisima Mixed Secondary School, Precious Blood Riruta, Orero Boys Secondary School, and The Kenya High School.
Again, there was a notable absence of schools formerly revered for their academic glory days.
When the then CS for Education Fred Matiang'i read out the names of top schools in the 2017 KCSE exams, yet again, where were the 'greats'?
The best performing schools in 2017 included the likes of Sing'ore Girls Secondary School, Light Academy, Loreto High Limuru and Kisima Mixed Sec School in the top ten. The Starehe Boys Centre did not make the top 50 as reported by Citizen Digital.
School rankings had ben abolished in 2014 by the Education Ministry citing the need to eliminate cut-throat competition among institutions, in a decision that also abolished the ranking on Form Four and Standard Eight candidates on the basis of their scores. After this, Kenyans had to rely on curated rankings by the mainstream media.
This decision would later be reversed in 2016 after a vote by MPs who amended the Kenya National Examinations Council Act “to ensure every institution is recognised and appreciated.”
A raft of measures during the tenure of then Education CS Fred Matiang'i led to dramatic changes in the administration of national examinations that drastically reduced cases of cheating and curiously reduced the dominance of traditional educational giants in national rankings.
As the rankings have shown over the years now, there seem to be no obvious winners that could be described as the undisputably best educational institutions with little-known institutions rising to the top year-on-year.
The enrollment numbers of the traditional giants have however been sometimes attributed to the reduction in average performance as compared to institutions with fewer candidates.
