Prof Boga, Activist Ahaya decry over poor standards

EDUCATION

DECEMBER 30, 2009

BY ALPHONCE GARI AND EUGENE OMILO

Educational experts in Coast province have called on the active participation of stakeholders to improve the educational standards in the region.

Speaking while reacting to this year’s KCPE results released by Education minister Prof Samson Ongeri on Tuesday, the experts said the region needs to set up a permanent positive trend in terms of performance.

Prof Hamadi Boga who teaches microbiology at JKUAT said this year’s results were not as impressive as last year’s as no single student from the region made it to the national top ten list.

The province’s top pupil Abbas Essajee came at position 11 nationally with 431 marks out of 500.

Last years’ top performer in the province and nationally had 460 marks. 

Other s in the second and third positions were Munga Evans Sadi who had 429 marks and Abubakar Teuz Omar, an orphan, with 428 marks.

“But that is beside the point, what we must be looking at is the performance of the majority of students especially those in rural areas,” said Prof Boga.

He says there is need to improve the educational standards in public schools as most top performers are from private schools.

“Our concern should also be on the girl child education, there is need to have sensitization programmes to have more girls enrolled in schools like is the case with Central province,” said Prof Boga.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Mombasa Branch Executive Secretary Ahaya Juma Ahaya said coastal people should change their attitude towards education for the region to post impressive results in national exams.

“The results should be a wakeup call for teachers, pupils and parents to try and play their part in improving our performance in national exams. Our politicians too should come closer to matters on education,” said Ahaya.

He asked the government to review the ban on holiday tuition as it helped many students score better marks.

“The ministry should revisit the holiday tuition issue for fairness. Other regions continue to teach during holidays,

He also asked the ministry to do more to curb cheating in exams saying the number of centers’ involved in cheating is still high.

“Deal with the examination council, cancelling a pupils’ result in a particular subject does not address the real problem. We still need to trace the dragon,” said Ahaya.

ENDS.