Education CS Fred Matiang'i. He is on the spot over the recently released KCSE results. [Photo/Star]
Even as the dust settles on the recently released examinations, more questions than answers are coming up.
According to the figures from the Ministry of Education, more than half the candidates who sat last year’s Form Four examination cannot proceed to higher education.
Leaders including Parliament’s Education Committee chairman Julius Melly, NASA leader Raila Odinga and KNUT secretary-general Wilson Sossion have questioned the credibility of the results, with activist Okiah Omtata moving to court over the same.
Only 10 percent of the candidates got grades that can give them entry into university, further questioning the marking and awarding of results.
“Close to 90 percent of the KCSE candidates have failed. This is very worrying,” he said.
He added: “As the country commits resources to free learning and scales up enrolment, the whole purpose and value for money is lost when close to 90 percent of those students eventually fail,”
135,550 candidates scored grade D, 179,381 grade D- and 35,536 grade E.
In total, 611,959 candidates registered for the exam although statistics show that 610,501 actually wrote the papers.
This means 57.27 percent of the candidates flopped.
In 2016, there were 295,463 candidates who scored grades D and below out of a candidature of 574,125.