It’s a tight race for boys’ schools in city

As jubilation over good performance in last year’s KCPE ebbs out, anxiety is setting in as candidates await to be told the secondary schools they will join.

For male candidates who wrote the exam in Nairobi, getting a place in the few public boys’ schools in the city is even more difficult.

Ms Beatrice Kori, a director of the Le Pic schools in Riruta Satellite, says the predicament of school choices for parents with male candidates has haunted them for over a decade.

Ms Kori, who served as a teacher for over two decades before retiring from Makini School in 1990, suggests that the available provincial schools be upgraded to national schools to cater for the overwhelming number of boys who sit the exam in Nairobi.

“Parents can also unite and build boys’ schools to ease the situation,” she added.

Reports indicate that pupils who scored 400 marks and above in the 2008 KCPE examinations were disgruntled as they could not understand how they ended up in lowly district or harambee schools, while others with far less marks in other districts joined better schools.

With over 200 districts countrywide, a national school can only pick one student per district — and in some cases none — according to the current quota system, leaving Nairobi’s top boys to fight for places in Starehe, Lenana and Nairobi School.

Provincial

The top boys provincial schools in Nairobi include Aquinas, Dagoretti, Upper Hill, Jamhuri and Jericho.

Ms Milcah Asanga, a parent whose son, Kevin Ondeko, attained 412 marks in last year’s examination is concerned that the girls seems to have a better deal.

“I would rather find a boarding school outside Nairobi than enrol him in a city day school,” she told the Saturday Nation.

“In Nairobi, we have to work harder to get the same slots in national and provincial schools,” her son Kevin said, adding that he would prefer to get admission to a boarding school.

Another candidate, Lewis Maina, from Le Pic School, who scored 412 marks, attributes the disparity in the quality of the schools to disciplinary issues in boys schools.

Mr Stephen Njoroge, the school’s headmaster, says that the high number of boys sitting the examination also contributes to the cut-throat competition.

“Expanding the schools is the only solution,” Mr Njoroge said.

Sister Agnes Kariuki, the headmistress at Our Lady of Mercy primary school in South B, concurs that city boys are disadvantaged as their schools are fewer compared to those of girls.

Anxiously

The best girl in 2008 at the school was admitted to Pangani Girls whereas this year’s top boy, David Karingithi, who scored 382, waits anxiously for his admission letter.

Sr Agnes says parents are forced to look for alternative schools upcountry if their children get admission to provincial day schools.

Most of the girls’ schools in Nairobi are boarding schools and handle a large number of students.

And as provincial schools adhere to their admission quotas, pupils who perform well in provinces like Nairobi, which lack well established provincial schools, lose out further.

The quota system that was introduced in the mid-1980s has been criticised for failing to reward merit by requiring provincial schools to admit 85 per cent of their students from their localities.

In the coming weeks, parents dissatisfied with their children’s secondary school placement will visit principals in “trophy” schools to beg for places in prestigious schools while others will even resort to bribery.

The selection to the country’s national and provincial schools has sparked debate on equity in education, after public primary schools posted poor results in the exam last year.

In the 2009 KCPE examination, more than half of the top 10 students nationally were from private schools.

Poor infrastructure has been described as one of the factors that is ailing public primary schools.

Unethical

Education minister Sam Ongeri has accused private schools of unethical exam registration practices, including double registration of candidates in order to ensure their children sail through to the coveted provincial schools in a particular province.

Some parents have been found to enrol pupils in high cost private schools in Nairobi and other areas and later register them for the exam in schools in rural districts.

To address the challenge of double registration in different centres, the national examiner plans to introduce the use of birth certificate numbers and introduce photographs for KCSE certificates for every candidate to track their movement and to guard against impersonation.

As the boys await their admission letters this week, they will be crossing their fingers in anticipation joining their schools of choice.

Source: Daily Nation