Girls’ secondary schools outshined their male counterparts in Lugari sub county in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), according to official results released by Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC).
Speaking to West FM after receiving the official results, Lugari sub county Education Officer, Mr. Francis Shikanda, revealed that three out of the five top schools in the sub county were girls’ schools.
According to the results, the perennial academic giants in Lugari Arch Bishop Njenga Girls maintained the first position with an overall mean score of 8.4 points, followed by Holy Family Musembe Mixed day school and St. Cecilia Girls Mautuma with 6.7 and 6.45 points respectively.
Mautuma Boys came fourth with 6.4 points, while Bishop Sulumeti Maganda Girls closed the top five with 6.35 points.
“Though Bishop Njenga Girls maintained the first position, it is important to note the school recorded a slight drop compared to 2014 results where it scored a mean of 8.7,” noted Shikanda who nevertheless expressed his joy over the school’s results.
The entire sub county failed to produce even a single A (plain) grade, except for 6 A – (minuses), which were scored by the six best candidates at Bishop Njenga Girls.
Ms. Modester Obonyo of Bishop Njenga Girls emerged the best overall candidate for the sub county after scoring A – (minus) of 77 points.
Shikanga, however, expressed his concern over the large number of candidates who scored below C+, “generally the results weren’t encouraging considering the fact that only 604 candidates out 1,965 examinees managed to score C+ and above.
Generally the sub county had a mean score of 5.6 up from the previous 5.2, with a majority of the candidates falling between C (plain) and C- (minus) bracket, added the SCEO.
With the looming possibility of over 160,000 students who scored C+ and above nationally set to miss direct entries to Kenyan universities, Shikanda has advised those who will miss out not to despair, but instead enroll for professional courses in credible
institutions like Teacher Training Colleges and Kenya Medical Training Colleges.
“Even those with mean grades of C and C- have potential of training for certificate and diploma courses at tertiary colleges,” added the official who urged students from within Lugari Sub County to enroll at Lugari Diploma Teachers Training College by sending applications through the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service
(KUCCPS).
Elsewhere, Bishop Njenga Girls Principal, Mrs. Esther Amukwachi, praised her girls for encouraging results in Lugari Sub County despite the negative deviation, “even though we didn’t achieve our 9.6 target,” she noted.
The school which had a candidature of 177 managed to get 6A – , 31 B+, 55B, 40B- and 34C+ with the last 2 candidates getting C-.
At Holly Family Musembe mixed day secondary there was joy as the school recorded an improved results compared to the previous year.
According to the principal George Wekesa the school had a mean of 6.75 up from 6.06 in 2014. The school had 1B+, 3B plain, 12 B-, 9 C+, 11C plain 8 C- with the last two candidates scoring D+.
However as the best performers in the 2015 KCSE examination jammed the streets to celebrate their results a cool environment was witnessed in most of schools within the sub county as they had nothing to celebrate about as the results were against their expectation.
A spot check by West FM showed most of the school remained locked in their respective classroom with normal learning going on.
