Teachers, candidates must change tact in this year’s KCSE-See Reasons

Knec has listed Kiswahili, Biology, Physics, Biology for the blind, History and Government, Religious Education and Business Studies as areas that need additional focus, based on last year’s performance.

Also listed are Art and Design, Agriculture, Power Mechanics, Drawing and design, French and Home Science subjects.

Knec Chief Executive Officer Mercy Karogo said the subjects recorded significant poor performance in last year’s exams and asked candidates to pull up this year.

Mrs Karogo also noted that woodwork, metalwork, electricity and German subjects did not register significant change in last year’s exams.

In her address at the just concluded Kenya Secondary School Heads Association meeting in Mombasa, she said that overall, 13 subjects recorded a mean of 50 per cent and above.

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She noted that Chemistry, General Science, Building Construction, Aviation Technology, Computer Studies, Arabic and Music recorded marked improvement.

Secondary heads demanded to know why students perform poorly in mathematics, chemistry and physics subjects.

They lamented that the performance in sciences subjects has continued to affect quality of teachers posted to schools to guide students in the specific areas.

Karogo however said that for specific subject performances, Knec prepares feedback booklet to enable candidates and teachers review areas of improvement.

“Our reports are on relevance, difficult or ambiguous items, marking schemes, irregularities and general candidates performance,” she said.

For instance, a 2016 Knec examinations booklet shows that English composition declined in percentage mean from 41.38 in 2015 to 40.25.

On mathematics paper, the Knec report found that in 2016, candidates performed better than previous years.