12,000 missing candidates puzzle officials

Ministry of Education officials are racking their brains to crack the puzzle of the 12,424 candidates who missed the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations.

The revelation by Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha, while releasing the 2020 KCPE results, sent shockwave, as the number of absentee candidates more than doubled compared to the 2019 figure – 5,530.

Educationists and government officials attribute the sharp rise in the number to the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw education institutions closed for over seven months last year as the country grappled with the health crisis.

The Ministry of Education is yet to account for the candidates and thousands of other learners who did not return to school in the partial opening in October 2020 and the full reopening in January.

But Prof Magoha dismissed concerns over the high dropout rate, saying the number of those who missed the exams was “insignificant”, compared to the 1.18 million who sat the exams. In 2019, 1.08 million candidates took the tests.

“We are determined to ensure that no candidate misses a place in secondary school. In the meantime, I urge all parents and guardians to take good care of their children so that all of them are able to take up their Form One spaces in the schools that they will be admitted to,” Prof Magoha said when he released the results on Thursday.

Various reasons have been advanced for the dropout figures, including teenage pregnancy, early marriages, deaths, sickness and displacement by raids and natural disasters.

Missed exams

Yesterday, Basic Education PS Julius Jwan told the Sunday Nation that the majority of the candidates who missed the exams were from pastoral communities and teenage girls who either got pregnant or were married off.

Despite the government’s mobilisation efforts to ensure that all registered candidates sat the papers – examination officials even delivered papers to hospitals and police cells – thousands still missed out.

Interviews with teachers and education officials show that about 80 per cent of the learners refused to return to school while others relocated and could not be traced by school heads.

Due to the months-long unsupervised stay at home, teenage pregnancies increased while others were reported to have been involved in drug abuse and other criminal activities.

A report by the Africa Institute for Development Policy showed that 151,433 girls aged below 19 conceived between January and May 2020. In Nairobi, 11,795 teenage pregnancies were reported. Other counties that had high numbers of teenage mothers were Kakamega (6,686) and Machakos (3,966). Another 62 teen pregnancies were reported in Kakuma Refugee Camp by June 2020, while 7,600 minors were reported pregnant in Baringo County and 15,542 in Narok County.

After schools fully reopened in January, there was a reported wave of juvenile delinquency that teachers and other stakeholders blamed on lack of attention on the learners. Property worth millions of shillings was lost as rioting students burnt down school buildings and other facilities countrywide.

That more than 12,000 candidates from a single class missed exams and cannot be accounted for points to a larger number of learners who fell by the wayside in the entire education system during the extended closure.

Drop out

A few others might drop out as they are set to, again, be out of school for four months. Experts say this is a blow to the 100 per cent transition policy that the government has pushed since 2018.

PS Jwan said some boys got involved in drug abuse while many others turned into boda boda business. A few others went into small jobs to earn a living for their families.

“When I led a team to Tana River County to mobilise learners to return to school, we realised that some of these pupils had relocated to other regions and teachers could not reach their parents on mobile phones as they did not have their contacts,” explained Dr Jwan.

He said despite the break occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, the ministries of Education and Interior worked together through chiefs and ensured the majority of the candidates resumed classes. “At the ministry level, we are doing follow-ups to establish where these candidates are and ensure they return to school,” said Dr Jwan.

A survey by the Sunday Nation established that most candidates who did not report back to school were from the North Rift and pastoral counties - Turkana, Baringo, Garissa, Marsabit, Narok, Samburu, and Tana River.

A significant number of others are from poor areas in cities like Nairobi and Mombasa. In Nairobi County, 28 candidates missed the examinations. Among them were seven reported to have died shortly after they registered for the exams. A source said that six boys were lured into drug abuse and refused to report back to school.

Other counties reported missing candidates but in low numbers.

Unicef had earlier warned that a long stay of learners at home exposes them to pregnancies, child labour, drug abuse and early marriages among other effects like child trafficking and sexually transmitted diseases.

Covid-19 outbreak

The school dropout rate for children in primary schools in Kenya was estimated at 21 per cent before the Covid-19 outbreak, meaning the prolonged closure was to blame for the high dropout rate.

Other learners were also adversely affected by food insecurity, especially those from arid and semi-arid counties, where they depended on free meals at school under the feeding programme.

In Kapedo, boys are reported to have been lured into banditry and efforts to get them back to school have proved futile. More than 5,000 learners in Samburu County are reported to have dropped out of school.

Meanwhile, candidates from flood-prone Nyando, Nyakach and Muhoroni sub-counties in Kisumu County had one of the toughest years in their lives even as they sat the examinations. Some of the schools were submerged and closed permanently. Kandaria Primary and Secondary School, Ogenya Primary, Nyamrundu Primary, Oseth Primary and Ombaka Secondary school were hard hit.

Most of them were also being used as evacuation centres for flood victims and when school resumed, tracing learners was a huge burden since some families had moved to higher areas kilometres away from the schools. Some learners are reported to have dropped out.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education allocated Sh28 million to relocate the affected schools in Nyando sub county. The tranche went to four schools, with Ombaka and Kandaria Secondary schools getting Sh10 million each while Kandaria Primary and Ogenya getting Sh4 million each to construct new classrooms.

Additional reporting by Rushdie Oudia.