As you are already aware, this long holiday season, I am keen and deliberate about spending quality and quantity time with Fiolina, the lucky laugh of my enviable life.
Having not had such an opportunity since we got married, it took meticulous planning, in the name of dispatching the kids to different places, to enable us to remain just the two of us.
Even before the last child, Electina, left, this year’s KCPE results were released. First, I did not understand what the hurry for releasing the results was. I wondered if anyone was chasing the Minister for Education to release the examinations.
As we waited to pick the results from the education office the next day, like everyone else, we started checking the results for a few students I considered good, via SMS.
The results were not coming back at first, despite charges being deducted. When the responses started coming, the marks were much lower than what we expected, and students had marks in Sign Language, a subject they never sat for.
“Have you seen the results?” Nzomo was the first one to call me complaining, saying that she had checked, and no student had Kiswahili marks.
She is the one who made me aware that everyone had scored 39 per cent in Kenya Sign language. Clearly, someone was against our school.
Soon, parents, neigbours, and other non-concerned people started calling me to ask me to publicly share the results of the school. Even though I asked Kuya to download the exams from the KNEC portal, I did not post them on the school notice board for all to see.
Some people started saying that we were afraid to share because we had failed the exams. Nothing can be further from the truth. We did not fail. I want to take this opportunity to give eight reasoned reasons why I declined to share the examination results with the public. Here we go.
Exam Discrepancies: As explained earlier, there were glaring errors with the results we had received. How can every student score 39 per cent in a subject they did not sit for? And why not 75 per cent as other schools that had similar type of errors?
Results are Private: According to the Data Privacy and Protection Act 2019, it is critical to keep people’s personal information private. Any results, whether medical or academic, are private results and are only handed over to the patient or student. It is unethical to start splashing their results for every other person to view.
Public Portal: Although we will not be releasing the results to just anyone, I would like to remind the public that the results of every candidate are fully available on a public portal. Like the General Elections where all results were published on a public portal and you could just open a website to see how your candidate performed, the same applies to KCPE.
All the results are available on a public portal and all you need to do is send the students’ Index number followed by KCPE to the SMS Code 40054 and you will instantly get the results.
No one has stopped you from checking the results of all our students and then proceeding to do your own analysis and extrapolation, depending on your statistical prowess. Please, however, note that even if you did that, those would still be merely provisional results. The results can only be released by KNEC, not you!
Examinations Body: The Kenya National Examinations Council - KNEC is the only body mandated – and paid - to announce and give out examination results. Not teachers, not heads. I therefore will not usurp KNEC’s solemn responsibility to start announcing results. That is why I am leaving the role of announcing publicly our performance to the statutory body that is mandated – and paid – to do this – KNEC!
The school was not a Candidate: I need to, once again, make it clear to everyone that at Mwisho wa Lami Primary School did not at any time sit for exams. Nor did teachers. Individual students did. I say this because some enemies of development have been spreading fake news that Mwisho wa Lami Primary School, or the rather, we teachers performed poorly, and action should be taken against us.
That is utter nonsense. The results belong to individual students, and there will be no collective responsibility in this matter. I did not sit for the exams, I had no index number, and I will neither take any glory nor will I be ashamed of results that are not mine.
Exam Performance is not my KPI: Following Kuya’s appointment as Deputy HOI, to avoid unnecessary conflict, we divided duties amongst ourselves. I would manage strategic matters while Kuya ran with school operational matters.
My strategic duties include mid-range and long-range planning, as well as relations with government bodies; while Kuya’s operational duties involved school discipline, and academics, where KCPE performance fell. As such, if anyone has any issues with our KCPE performance, then Kuya is answerable, not me.
Education is more than just exams: At Mwisho wa Lami Primary school, we take care of learners’ all-round needs. From mental to physical, from spiritual to social, from psychological to behavioural. KCPE performance is just a small part of the mental capacity of the learners. It does not define who they are. Not at all.
Because of these solid reasons, we will not publicly share the results of our students’ performance, even after the errors are corrected. What is important is that for the second time in a row, our school will be having 100 per cent transition to Secondary School.
This is a huge milestone that is attributable to my steadfast leadership of this school. Luckily, that was the last KCPE, as this will be the last time people will be asking to see KCPE results!
