New KCSE Grading System and Compulsory Subjects that Will Determine Final Scores

Changes to the grading of Form Four national examinations will give millions of students under 8-4-4 a greater opportunity to improve their final grades.

The new proposals to review the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) were approved by President William Ruto while meeting with the education reforms team.

The Presidential Working Party for Education Reform proposes that two mandatory subjects be used to determine the learners’ final KCSE grades.

The required subjects will be Mathematics and one language (English or Kiswahili).

These two subjects will be factored into the final result alongside the candidate’s top five subjects.

Currently, the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) grades candidates on the basis of five required subjects and two other subjects with the highest performance.

Knec considers a candidate’s scores in Mathematics, which is mandatory, two mandatory languages, namely English and Kiswahili, and two sciences selected from Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

The remaining two subjects are chosen from Religious Education, Geography, History, Business Studies, Agriculture, and other technical subjects.

In its recommendations, the reforms team stated, “Develop guidelines for calculating the average KCSE score (based on English/Kiswahili, Mathematics, and five other best subjects).”

The team proposed implementing the modifications within a year. Therefore, the 2023 candidates will be the first to benefit from the new proposal if they are affected.

President William Ruto stated on Wednesday that of the 11,000 secondary schools in the country, over 5,000 do not send a single student to college, with the majority of these schools located in rural areas.

He said that it was a cause for them to do some soul searching. Ruto pointed out that many of the students who ended up at their universities were the children in academies and those whose parents could afford a certain quality of education.

He mentioned that Kenya could not continue in this manner and that they needed to rethink the situation.

President Ruto delivered a speech at the inauguration of the Open University of Kenya in Konza Technopolis City.

David Njengere, chief executive officer of KNEC, applauded the proposals and explained that the current grading system has dashed the hopes of many graduates.

Dr. Njengere stated that the modifications will prevent learners in the remaining five 8-4-4 classes from realizing their aspirations.

Currently, the 8-4-4 education system in the country consists of five sections. The final cohort will take the KCPE examination this year, indicating that they will enter secondary school in 2024 and conclude in 2027.

According to Dr. Njengere, the proposal of the Presidential working group will restructure the evaluation system so that it reflects the career interests of the student.

Njengere explained that the challenge they had been facing with the 8-4-4 system was a highly limited and inflexible curriculum.

According to Njengere, upon completion of the system, every child was required to undergo testing in the same subjects, irrespective of their individual strengths.

This testing played a significant role in determining their final grade. He further described the curriculum as encompassing a wide array of subjects, making it quite burdensome for any child to handle.

Njengere stated that an examination of the KCSE’s design is essential to comprehending the issue. He observed that the examination was designed with a dual purpose in mind.

The first, according to Dr. Njengere, is to evaluate the students’ performance throughout their four years in secondary education.

The second function, according to him, is to serve as a transitional marker that determines whether the pupil will attend college or university.

The latter, according to Dr. Njengere, has been a sore spot for many Form Four graduates because the grading system dilutes their overall performance.

He stated that the cascading effect prevents thousands from pursuing education beyond secondary school.

Due to intense competition in the final examination, KCSE, according to Njengere, has been reduced to a test that determines the student’s future without regard to its assessment purpose.

Dr. Njengere stated in an interview that the demands of the curriculum are not meant to hinder individuals from transitioning in life, be it due to age or achievement.

He emphasized that transitioning is essential and should not be inhibited in any way.

As an illustration, he stated that a candidate interested in the social sciences must pass two science courses; otherwise, their final score will be diluted, and they risk being excluded from their desired program.

Dr. Njengere expressed that it wouldn’t make a difference how well they performed in languages and humanities since three particular subjects would negatively impact their overall score.

As a result, they expected to achieve an average score, possibly a C, which they believed wouldn’t be due to their own lack of intelligence but rather the system’s requirements.

“We are punishing the students,” he added. For instance, we tell a student who excels in the disciplines that he/she must also pass in English and humanities, etc.; the child cannot do this, so we are creating waste in the system.”

The same case scenario applies to Science-inclined students who must be evaluated in English and Literature, Kiswahili, and Fasihi.

The Presidential working party expressed their concern about the necessity for some subjects to potentially hinder students when they aim to pursue a specific career path that doesn’t demand achieving high grades in all subjects upon exiting secondary school.

Dr. Njengere asserts that all subjects are essential, even for students who will not necessarily need them in their careers for fundamental skills like numeracy and literacy.

However, he insists that there must be a clear distinction between acquiring this fundamental knowledge and grading the student during KCSE exams.

He said that they would assess the individual on their achievement, as they needed to possess some fundamental knowledge in numeracy and literacy.

Additionally, it was emerging that the present grading system had placed Kenya below other countries.

Analysis of data from the East Africa region reveals, for instance, that Kenya ranks lowest in terms of the number of distinctions – that is, Grade A and A- (minus) – in the final national examination.

In contrast, Kenya’s performance plummeted to a mere 0.85%. This indicates that only 7,553 candidates earned a Grade A or A- (minus), the equivalent of a distinction in Uganda and Tanzania, out of the total number of candidates.

“At this point, you begin to suspect that the problem may not be the pupils, but rather the grading system we use for our children. “Perhaps we are using a system that is a bit too punitive for them, and we are not distinguishing between achievement and placement,” Dr. Njengere stated.

Another comparison between the performance of the final secondary school examination under the 8-4-4 and the 7-4-2-3 systems:

The analysis reveals that between 1983 and 1986, 3,509 candidates (3.21 percent of those who took the exam) attained Division 1, the highest O-level grade.

With the implementation of the 8-4-4, however, the numbers plummeted dramatically.

In 1989, for example, only one candidate out of 130,639 earned an A on the KCSE. In 1990, there were 131,932 candidates, but none received an A grade. Then in 1991, there were 166,712 applicants, of which only two received an A.

Even with the examination cheating and malpractice that was rampant prior to the 2016 reforms, the Knec data reveals that the best results were in 2014, but only 0.635% of all candidates received an A.

“Assuming there was widespread cheating, we would not be able to award even one percent of the applicant pool with the highest grade,” he stated.

New KCSE Grading System and Compulsory Subjects that Will Determine Final Scores