Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has threatened police action against parents or communities who will be found to have frog-marched school heads over the poor performance of their children in national exams.
His remarks come in the wake of sporadic incidents where school principals were confronted by angry parents over the dismal performance of their children in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.
“Going forward, the Ministry of Education will treat any invasion to schools to frog-march teachers out of their workstations as acts of crime that will prompt firm and decisive action from law enforcers.
"Any stakeholder who is aggrieved by the perceived poor performance of schools in national examinations is advised to follow legal means to report to relevant authorities for action,” Machogu said.
His warning on Monday comes hot on the heels of two incidents in Uasin Gishu and Kakamega counties where parents stormed two schools and flogged heads of the institutions.
The principal at St Gabriel Isongo Secondary School in Mumias and the school’s director of education found himself in unfamiliar territory after parents evicted him from the school.
The incident came barely a week after a similar incident occurred at Mafuta Secondary School in Moiben, Uasin Gishu County.
The January 11 incident saw angry parents storm the school in protest after the best KCSE candidate attained mean Grade D+ in the 2023 exam released on January 8 in Eldoret.
The second-best student at the school scored a D -while the rest of the candidates scored a grade E.
The parents held protests, barricaded roads and called for the removal of the Principal blaming him for failing in his responsibility to steer the school to success.
But Machogu absolved school heads from blame over learners’ poor performance saying achievement in examinations is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders, including parents, teachers and candidates themselves.
“The Ministry is disturbed by this unfortunate trend, which appears to create the impression that the burden of poor performance in examinations must be exclusively borne by teachers, especially the Head of Institution.
“In any case, the Ministry of Education and the Teachers Service Commission have put in place a robust and elaborate mechanism for evaluating the performance of teachers and field officers which always ensures non-performing staff are dealt with by existing laws and policies,” he said.
At Isongo, parents joined hands with learners and forcefully removed the school Principal from his office in a humiliating manner, forcing the school head to hop onto a motorbike in a bid to get away from the angry mob.
Mumias East MP Peter Salasya who spoke at the school said it’s upon school heads to ensure candidates perform well in national exams.
“Parents have played their role, they have paid school fees then you have not delivered. It means that you cannot whip your teachers to deliver.”
The Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association Kakamega County and the county Governor Fernandes Barasa condemned the incident saying such cases should not be tolerated.
Barasa echoed Machogu’s sentiments that a school’s performance is the reflection of the overall input of all stakeholders, including parents, teachers and candidates.
In the 2023 KCSE exams, only 201,133 candidates (22.27%) of 899,453 who sat the examination attained the minimum university entry qualification of Grade C+ and above.
Those who attained D+ and above were the majority, crossing the half-million mark at 526,222 (58.27%) while an unprecedented 48,174 (5.33%) scored E.
Overall, only 1,216 (0.14%) candidates out of 899,453 who sat the examination obtained an overall grade A with national schools accounting for the lion's share of 889.
While releasing the results at Moi Girls High School, Eldoret, and Machogu expressed pain at the results considering the ministry applied a new grading system that reduced the number of compulsory subjects required to compute the mean grade.
"I, therefore, direct the Directorate of Quality Assurance to work with other field officers and teachers to investigate these E Grade cases in each county of the country and submit a report to me within one month for further action," he said.