Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i on Wednesday released the 2015 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) Results and highlighted that there was a significant drop in performance of public schools.
The former Agriculture CS stated that the decline in performance from a mean score of 187.8 in 2014 to 180.7 in 2015, was mainly due to teacher absenteeism.
Mr Matiang'i mentioned that an independent survey by the World Bank showed that teachers missed school up to 70 per cent in certain counties thus in the long run contributed to the three-year consecutive decline in KCPE results in public schools.
National Chair of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (KUPPET) Omboko Milemba however countered this by stating that the five-week strike during the third term of the school calendar in 2015, was the sole reason for the decline.
“We asked for a postponement for the exams to better prepare the candidates but that was not accorded,” Mr Omboko said in defense of teachers.
CS Matiang’i urged Education stakeholders especially the County Directors of Education to collect the exam results and analyse them to find lasting solutions to the persistent problems of poor performance and teacher truancy. He also promised to play his part by accommodating the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) so as to find ways of handling the problem of truancy among teachers.
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