In The KCSE Masterclass Blueprint, Paul Wanyonyi cites reasons why some secondary schools register poor performance in KCSE. The raft of reasons include: Failure to launch the Form 4 programme at the right time, poor planning, failure to address emerging trends in setting and marking of KCSE, lack of teamwork in the school, poor exam preparation strategies, failure to nurture character in candidates, failure to help weak candidates prop up their performance, failure to train candidates on the art of exams, embracing success-limiting policies and poor finishing. I can also add the intention to cheat or lack of exam integrity.
Firstly, on failure to launch the Form 4 programme at the right time, schools should swing swiftly, and launch it post-haste. Let Form 4 students be conscious that they are candidates who have no time to waste. Focusing on teachers, it is imperative to constitute and consolidate a formidable Form Four dream team, which will implement the rigorous academic programmes in the candidate class. Let there be a periodic review of the programme. In Best Academic Practices, there should be data-driven decision-making.
Strategic meetings
Secondly, the sage said, that failure to plan is planning to fail. Therefore, schools should have plausible plans put in place. It is not about; we shall cross the bridge once we get there. The powers that be should work on academic strategic meetings, where they mobilise all relevant stakeholders to become supporters and generators of viable ideas on peak performance. This underscores the essence of Parental Engagement and Empowerment (PEEs) through academic clinics. Then schools should develop Academic Action Plans (AAPs) for the three terms. Schools should embrace episodic revision model, develop timetables for every puissant programme, and have periodic review sessions.
Thirdly, in the bid to address emerging trends in setting and marking of KCSE, schools should buy, study and impressively implement raft of recommendations pointed out in the KNEC reports. Teachers should be ready to attend seminars and workshops, so that they keep abreast of the trends in their subjects of specialisation. Candidates should be encouraged to revise and review plenty of past papers.
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Consequently, lack of teamwork invites final dismal failure. No wonder, Principals should foster teamwork and encourage the staff to demonstrates it. TEAM is Together Everyone Achieves More. Somehow, in The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, John C. Maxwell postulates: For the dream to work, there must be teamwork. The dream is the overall mean score the school yearns to scoop. The dream is the career every candidate longs to pursue after high school, which is impossible with disgraceful grades. Ipso facto, teamwork comes through bonding and team building sessions. Schools also achieve it through inter-departmental bench-marking meetings and team teaching.
Moreover, exam requires plenty of practice and ample preparation. Preparation is academic, psychological and spiritual. When students have adequate academic preparation, they can hardly succumb to psychological challenges such as exam fever and panic. Teachers should ensure there is effective content mastery and retention. Schools should run three significant systems: teaching, testing and monitoring. In deft management of candidate class, teachers should teach, test and re-teach some areas. They should expand learning time — focus on remedial and revision. On spiritual preparation, it means, God must be at the centre of it all. Schools can press all buttons to prepare Form 4 candidates for KCSE, but without God, everything is zilch. Proverbs 21:31 posits, “A horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory comes from the Lord.”
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Ideally, candidates should be compelled to go the extra mile. They should stretch, sacrifice and pay the price for good grades. For no price, no prize. Precious things are products of pressure, not pleasure. Again, in The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, there is a law John C. Maxwell christened The Law of the Rubber Band, where he cogently contends: Rubber bands are useful because they can stretch. Human beings also become useful only when they stretch.
Holistic character-formation
In addition, without comely character and discipline of execution, candidates finally fail and fall flat. Therefore, schools should focus on programmes that lead to holistic character-formation. In order to awaken their moral and spiritual conscience, school arrowheads should strengthen spiritual programmes. There should be adept departments of Guidance and Counselling. The office of Deputy Principal(s) should ensure that discipline prevails. They should firmly deal with asinine students in the candidate class.
Actually, every candidate class has the head, body and tail. Schools that want to show their shine and sheen, must push (fatten) the head as they cut (reduce) size of the tail. In most cases, schools have the propensity of focusing on high achievers (head) but forget about struggling students (tail). Yet, taking the analogy of a snake, when you want to kill it, you hit the head hard. But if you want to confirm whether it is indeed dead, you touch the tail. The tail is also the hub of poison.
Somewhat, it is why schools should come up with stupendous strategies that can prop up candidates who are weak and sick academically. There should be ability grouping. Teachers should serve more RATs. There should be more remedial lessons, more consultations blended with active and productive group discussions. More should be done in relation to the ‘a must come areas’, commonly known as the Table of Specification (ToS).
Art of examination
In fact, secondary schools that want candidates to evince excellence should focus more on the art of examination. The unique technique is, after completion of syllabus, teachers should schedule subject-based seminars and symposiums. They should invite guest examiners and experts: to polish pale parts. To dot the I’s and cross the T’s. The central plank of teaching the art of examination is to run an in-depth examination system. Candidates should know the trends in setting and marking of exams. They should know marks allotted to every question, points required and grievous goofs that invite penalties.
Likewise, they should know how to plot work on paper, areas they can scoop free marks, and be sensitised on the format of exam papers. Then, schools that shine as stars in exams help candidates to finish the race with great grace; bravery and bravado; strength and stamina. How? They develop a holistic homestretch programme. They compel candidates to finish the last lap with power like champions. Schools must also know; attitude of finitude can contribute to poor finishing. Wars, fights, discord, disunity, lack of targets, poor mobilisation of resources and quick dismissal of what can work – limits success in many ways.
Exam integrity
Lastly, schools cannot fix reasons for poor performance by compromising exam integrity. Too true, when Form 4 candidates have an inkling that you will assist them to cheat, they stop pushing the envelope. They rest and relax. They take things for granted and become mediocre: Being at the bottom of the top. Or at the top of the bottom. Cheating is building on quick sand, and such a foundation is wrong.
In The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders, Jesus warned, it cannot withstand vagaries of nature. When KNEC detects cheating at a certain centre and tightens the noose, the school can experience a pratfall – an embarrassing fall akin to falling with the two round parts above the legs. Above all, cheating in KCSE is not right.
We should not do it because others are doing. For in the years of yore, St. Augustine of Hippo warned: “Right is right even if no one is doing it, and wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” It is ethical to focus on fair play because short cuts are always wrong cuts. In The 7 Deadly Sins, Mahatma Gandhi talked about “Knowledge without Character”. Through my lenses, sometimes, bad things that Principals do have a boomerang effect: they come back to hit them hard. How do you cheat flagrantly then you thank God about it? You even invite people for thanksgiving day. Does God delight in deception? No wonder, as an education consultant in several schools, I tell Heads of Institutions (HoIs) I am chanced to meet.
That the shame of exam cheating is uglier than the shame of poor performance. You would rather register poor performance that is of genuine effort, and trust God for progressive improvement. Than get top grades and send all students to university because you know how to “wash” results. Cheating besmirches the image of the school, staff and students. Even if thieves walk heads held high, people around them know their subterfuges. Cancellation and withholding of results is stressful. Then, when we abet cheating in schools, we are oiling cogs of corruption. So, as we complain about corruption in the House on the Hill, someone should look at us straight on the face, and correct us: those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. The sad part of it, when students garner grades they do not deserve, they matriculate into universities to pursue careers they lack the necessary aptitudes and attitudes to wrestle with. Cheating also puts the career of both Principals and teachers at a precarious position.
A thief has 40 days. Therefore, in case you are a cheat, one sad day, you will be caught. Remember, in the distant past, the US President Harry S. Truman kept a sign with a phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. It read “the buck stops here”. Meaning, the President must make decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility of those decisions. In a school set up, exam cartels show up in different sizes and shape. Through it all, when a centre becomes a crime scene, Principals take the blame because elsewhere, John C. Maxwell also told us: Everything rises and falls on leadership.
Victor Ochieng’
The writer rolls out academic talks. He builds the capacity of teachers on Best Academic Practices and Great Management of Candidate Class.
vochieng.90@gmail.com 0704420232
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