Secondary school principals in West Pokot county have applauded Cabinet Secretary for Education, Dr Fred Matiang’i, for putting in place measures to curb irregularities during the Kenya certificate of secondary education (KCSE) exams and ensuring results are released on time.
Led by the Chairman of Secondary School Principals Association in the County, Mr. Peter Lochakapong, they called upon all stakeholders in the education sector to support measures being implemented by the ministry of education to ensure sanity is evident in the sector.
“The results reflect the real results of all schools in the county, schools which have done well I congratulate them and those who scored below average should put in more effort,” he said. He said they didn’t expect the results to be released in December this year and he commended Matiang’i for being an outstanding cabinet secretary.
“There were no chances of manipulation of the results, the marking was done swiftly, many students believed they will have a chance to cheat, they believed no strict rules will be applied” he added.
Lochakapong said most of the schools in the county performed well in KCSE, though there was a general drop across the country.
His sentiments were echoed by Ortum Principal Jonathan Siwanyang who said the results were not up to their expectation while affirming the administration’s readiness to inculcate new mechanisms in line with CS Matiang’i rules for better results in the future.
Mr Siwanyang said that all the candidates in his school have made it to university.
“We shall take all of them to university. It was the hard work by the students and teachers. We prepared them well from form one,” said Siwanyang.
Ortum boys’ high school emerged top in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education 2016 in West Pokot county by registering a mean score of 8.91 followed closely by Tartar girls’ national school which scored a mean mark of 7.9.
Kapenguria boys high school, Nasokol girls and Chewoyet High School, which have had a record of good performances in previous years, managed to score a mean score of 7.64, 7.0, and 6.2 respectively.
Caren Riangole Kalya from the Pokot community also surprised and impressed many in the county after scoring an A minus of 79 points from Pangani girls.
She encouraged other girls from Pokot community to focus on education and outshine boys saying that FGM and early marriages have hampered girls from performing.