National Assembly Majority leader Aden Duale has asked Education CS George Magoha to form a task force to investigate the poor KCSE exam performance in his Garissa Township constituency and Northeastern at large.
Speaking in Garissa town on Wednesday when he met top 2019 KCSE performers – those who scored A- and B+ – from Garissa Township, Duale said though some students scored high marks, many grade Es that were recorded in the area. He said this should be a reason for concern for all the stakeholders.
In public schools, there were a total of 249 Es in Garissa Township constituency alone with NEP Girls Secondary School led with 79Es, Boys Town Secondary (70 Es), while Yathrib Girls Secondary School had 27 Es.
In the constituency, 326 students scored D minus, 186 (D plain),135 (D+),91 (C-), 60 (C plain), 28 (C+), B- ( 31 ), B plain ( 15 ), B + ( 5 ) and A- (4).
A breakdown down of the results showed that of the more than 1,000 students who sat their national exam last year in the constituency, only 83 attained a mean grade of C+ and above, qualifying to join universities.
Duale said the poor results should concern and worry everyone and urged the CS to ‘move with speed and act’.
“I must admit I'm very disappointed by last year's results. I am urging the CS to immediately form a task force to establish why children in Northeastern are failing in national exams. They were getting Ys and now they are getting Es,” he said.
Duale wondered why in a constituency like his, where there are enough teachers, books, infrastructure and the CDF kitty pays for students, still perform poorly.
“I am perplexed. I don’t have an explanation for the poor performance. Somebody should tell us why poor performance persists. Could the problem with the parents, teachers or the students themselves? Something somewhere is terribly wrong. That is what should be established,” he said.
Duale said if the Education CS fails to form a task force, then the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education should visit the constituency to find out why students are failing with all the resources invested.
He congratulated the few top performers and assured them of his commitment to ensure they are admitted to universities in Kenya and abroad.
“We celebrate our top achievers as we make human resources development our top priority. I'm proud of them since most of them were beneficiary’s of Garissa Township bursary scheme,” he said.