Something must be done on our schools, we must act- Governor Tunai

Narok Governor Samuel ole Tunai has ordered the formation of an education taskforce to establish why schools in the county perform poorly in national examinations. The governor has expressed his displeasure with the results posted in 2017 KCSE and KCPE exams by schools across the county. The decision to form the taskforce was reached during a one-day education stakeholders’ meeting at the Maasai Mara University where boards of management, headteachers, parents’ representatives, directors of education, county representatives of the Teachers Service Commission, CEC for Education and leading practitioners in the education sector agreed to improve performance in the county. “We have to do whatever it takes to turn around performance in national examinations. The future of our children depends on education so we cannot take chances with academic excellence,” said Mr Tunai. MAJOR PROBLEM He added that the results point to a major problem in the sector because even those schools that used to be academic giants have sharply declined in performance. The 10-person taskforce was mandated to carry out a quarterly assessment of schools, make sure all schools enhance accountability of teachers and students, recommend modalities of benchmarking, approaches for motivation of teachers and students as well as a needs analysis of schools. UNIVERSITY GRADES Governor Tunai expressed dissatisfaction that 459 students (7.71 percent) out of the 6,479 students who sat KCSE exams in 2017 qualified to go to university. An analytical presentation of the 2017 KCSE exam scores by the County Quality Assurance Officer Moseti indicated that no student attained an A grade, with 5,012 which represents 77.8 percent scoring grade D+ and below. In the proportionate percentages, he said, 292 out of the 3,783 Boys (7.7%) and 170 out of the 2,655 girls (6.4%) passed their exams. NEGATIVE DEVIATION From the 2017 exam results, the county recorded a negative deviation from 3.16 to 3.0. “All the sub-counties recorded a negative deviation except Transmara East that recorded a marginal improvement of 0.004 and 63 schools recorded a positive deviation while 66 declined,” said Mr Moseti, adding that no school had recorded a positive deviation in the last three years. Narok Senator Ladema ole Kina called on all stakeholders in the education sector to help transform students and pupils in the county. “We are worried [by] the high percentage of failures in our villages and (this) might soon be a security threat,” said the senator. Nominated MP David ole Sankok caused laughter when he called on the Education Cabinet secretary to transfer all high school teachers in the county, terming them as the source of the dismal performance in national examinations.