New entrants sweep aside former giants
Benard Gitau and Reuben Mwambingu
A sizeable number of former renowned academic giants that dominated top positions previously continued to flop.
In the 2019 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination results released by Education Cabinet secretary George Magoha on Wednesday, most of the former top performers continued to fade including Starehe Boys Centre, Mang’u High School, St Mary’s School, Yala, among others.
Other schools that used to feature at the top but their performance have been dipping include; Sacho, Chavakali, Kamusinga, Lenana School, Bahati Girls, Mary Mount Molo, Kanunga High School among others.
Utumishi Boys Academy, Sunshine Secondary School and Maseno School have also recorded below-par performance.
In the 2019 KCSE results, the schools failed to register a top 10 candidate.
In the Coast region, some reputable Coast academic giants performed below par in the exam.
The schools include; Mama Ngina Girls High School, Aga Khan, Allidina Visram and Shimo la Tewa, Kenyatta High School, Bura Girls, Murray Girls and St Mary’s Lushangonyi.
Previously, they had registered their dominance in the region but in 2019 the schools failed to produce a single straight A.
Allidina Visram, for example, has until recently has been a centre of excellence at the Coast.
The school is on record for producing some prominent personalities including former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, Changamwe MP Omar Mwinyi and Kisauni MP Ali Menza Mbogo.
The school, however, has belatedly been posting dismal results year in year out.
With a mean score of 5.6, Allidina produced a single A-minus, B+ 5, B 11, B- 10, C+ 10, C 28, C- 33, D+ 26, D 16, and D- 2.
But an education official who spoke to People Daily in confidence for fear of reprisal blamed the performance decline of Allidina on the fact that the school was placed in the category of sub-county school thereby exposing it to intakes of below-average performers.
“Back then the school used to select its own students and you find that only those with 350 marks and above in Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) would get a chance in that school.
But today dynamics have changed, now the school admits students who score 250 and below in KCPE. So its level of competition is sub-county school,” the official said.
Mama Ngina Girls, a national school in Mombasa on the other hand had A- 5, B+ 20, B 28, B- 34, C+ 35, C 39, C- 23, D+ 11, D 3, D- 1, X 1 .
Officials at the school, however, said a number of challenges including space for recreation, have affected their performance.
Last year, the government through the then Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i announced that it had released Sh100 million for the relocation of the school to a 10-acre piece of land in Shimo la Tewa area in Shanzu.
