Experts want those who missed exam to re-register
As the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates continue to celebrate their impressive results, some 3,979 learners, who had registered to sit the national exams but never did, could be navigating options of re-registering or joining vocational institutions to pursue their dreams.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha yesterday announced that only 747,171 candidates sat the exam across 10,567 examination centres against 751,150 who had registered for the tests, according to the Kenya National Examinations Council statistics.
High number
Besides devastations precipitated by Covid-19, natural factors such as relocation of families, death, absenteeism and terminal illnesses of candidates are reported to have occasioned their failure to sit the exams.
While those who sat for the exams increased by 6.6 per cent from 697,222 candidates in 2019, the number of candidates who missed the exams is high and against the government’s 100 per cent transition policy.
According to educationists, the figure is regrettable, but having come out of a pandemic that forced most people to relocate from urban to rural areas, it is possible that such a high number never sat the tests.
According to Kenya Private Schools Association chair Peter Ndolo, students stayed home for over seven months forcing some to become breadwinners, and thereby ended up doing menial jobs.
Others, he said, relocated with their parents to cope with adverse effects of the virus and were unable to go back to sit the exams.
Ndolo, who said the candidates should be encouraged to re-register for the exams for a brighter future, inspired parents to live up to their responsibilities and give their children the best of education.
He said education remains the key to national development and that it was the only legacy parents could give their children to secure a better future.
“It is regrettable if such a number never sat for KCSE. The matter should be interrogated and candidates allowed to re-register for the 2021 tests,” said Ndolo.
Other educationists who sought anonymity urged the government to do everything within their means to provide the necessary mechanisms that would help the candidates re-register for the tests.
