SAM'S SENSE: Day schools or D schools?

Three weeks ago, the Ministry of Education released the KCSE 2025 results. There were celebrations across the country as families and neighborhoods hailed the performance of their sons and daughters. Statistics show that the class of 2025 produced the highest number of quality grades in comparison to previous cohorts. 27 per cent of those graded qualified to directly join universities whose minimum is C plus.

Now, flipping the coin, half of the class did not do as well. 48.7 per cent of those graded scored between grades E and D+.

Upon scrutiny, majority of the D plus and below performers attended sub-county schools, popularly known as day schools. Put differently, two in every three students who went to a day school ended up posting grades E, D-, D plain or a D plus.

First, we are told, that it depends on the entry behavior. That if a learner finished KCPE with 200 marks or less out of the possible 500, it is expected that at KCSE, the grade would be consistent. Perhaps there is logic in this. The only problem is that, this explanation does not look at the bigger picture.

A student at Raganga Secondary School in Kisii County had scored 305 marks out of 500 in KCPE 2021. Four years later, the same student posted a Grade D, the best for the school. Is it that the student lost his brainpower in those 4 years? It is difficult to accept such an explanation; especially when you analyse the state of the school. An institution that lacks the basic infrastructure and equipment to support any meaningful learning. A place where teachers do not necessarily attend classes nor aspire to cover the syllabus.

That institution, the Education Cabinet Secretary says, should not have existed as a school for the last five years. And so I ask, how many Ragangas do we have in the country?

Let’s turn the story. Why do students in national schools post impressive grades? Is it because of their entry behavior? Maybe. But the KCSE exam is worlds apart from KCPE. Meaning, what happens at school in the intervening four years is the most crucial determinant behaviour. Not the entry behavior. In any case, there were 173 Es posted by national schools.

Yet at national schools, there is investment in facilities. There are more resources in capitation sent there given the high number of students. Learners there have a totally different exposure. Yet, the national schools accommodated less than five per cent of the class, meaning not sufficient for all our problems.

Today, the government is rolling out a pro-youth programme dubbed NYOTA. NYOTA for, National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement. A 29-billion-shilling loan taken by the government of Kenya from the World Bank intended at empowering the youth, majorly those that didn’t progress beyond Form 4.

Let that sink. We are spending a 29-billion-shilling loan to empower youth who did not progress beyond Form 4. Question: Who doesn’t progress beyond Form 4? It is usually the student who scores poorly at the KCSE. It is the student who scores Grade E or D. Such students and others who lack funding to progress with their education see a poor KCSE grade as the end. And we cannot accept this to be okay. It’s not.

Why then as a country don’t we invest in day schools to make them viable places for the young of Kenya to excel? And Yes, we are transitioning to the Competency Based Education (CBE) so that “exams are no longer as important.”

But let’s face it. There is no evidence that learners who are joining day schools now for senior school under CBE will have a better chance at the national stage than their 8-4-4 counterparts.

It is highly likely that learners there will still post weaker outcomes. And then in a few years, the government will be forced to come up with yet another NYOTA-like programme to empower the youth who don’t progress past senior school.

For a country that yearns to reach Singapore status, we cannot neglect day schools and expect a manpower that builds the expressway to Singapore. At the very least, there ought to be value for money for the taxpayer who pays upto Ksh.700 billion on education.

Failing to think, plan and strategically invest in schools that accommodate more than half of us is to lack sense at the sense of it.