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US-based Kenyan lawyer Prof. Makau Mutua has called for the abolishment of national examinations taken at the end of primary and secondary school.
Prof. Makau said the government should do away with both Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations arguing that the two tests add no value to Kenyan children.
The examinations do more harm than good to Kenyan learners, according to Mutua, who expressed his opinion on Twitter a day after 2019 KCSE results were released by Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha.
“ABOLISH national exams. They aren’t about education. No — they only deny young people opportunities, stunt human potential, and stratify society. Let’s stop locking young people out through this obscene charade,” Makau tweeted.
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The Prof is right. Without these exams, children will not be subjected to these inhuman practices. Kenyan kids are taught for the exams! They read and study for the exams
What inhuman practices!?? Are they in school or at war?? Standardized tests are used as a medium to determine who qualified for what in the society! Do any with exams to have a dummy society similar to the dude who is advocating to get rid of testing! Did you take a test to qualify you for a driving license? Dishing academic certificates from any form of testing defeats the purpose of education. No wonder Makau is such a bad lawyer because he has never been tested to know if he studied law any where!
@Makau, it would be more meaningful if you made some constructive criticism. What would you suggest to replace the exams. Just bashing the exams as an abscene charade is shallow and meaningless. Exams are unavoidable. In the US, we have SAT's, MCAT, LSAT, etc. I am sure improvements could be done to KCPE & KCSE but not getting rid of them altogether.
My exact sentiments Mr/Ms Fundi.
Makau should realize that his title by itself doesn't confer to him any special respect or wisdom. You assume readers of mewakilishi are beneath your intellectual level and hence your half baked arguments.
completely agree with lawyer Prof. Makau. It is like labeling students with lower grades as failures. How do you grade and compete students in remote rural areas with poor learning facilities with students in cities with equipped schools and labs?? At the end of the day it is not the grades that determines your destiny in life, education gives you knowledge but it is what you do with that knowledge that determines your success in life...life skills, personality, integrity which most of these people my learned friends lack.
And how exactly will you be able to tell the fools from the achievers.There needs to be a system because not everyone can go to university or even become a doctor.Just because the Kenyan education system failed you does not mean it failed everyone else.Just like you have a performance review where judging by your comments you expect a raise (pity the idiot who has to give it to you) there must be a system to recognize the weak from the strong.The theory of survival for the fittest reins supreme in all aspects of life because Life is finite .It is all about accounting for you time in school ,at work, in life .Even the billionaires of today cannot buy back time .This theory that everyone is a winner is just that BS.Exams do not necessarily equalize but provide a fair way to account for your time in school .Too bad if you are sick or cannot recall that is why you are given notice in advance and advised to prepare.
These exams are there because of scarcity of resources. Its like in Oympics Every one aims for aspot on the podium,but it only has space for 3 athletes-gold,silver,and bronze.
There are only so many slots for would be doctors in Kenya. If half of all students who did these exams wanted to be doctors,do we have room for them?
Bear in mind that just because those students who scored high want to be doctors will not necessarily make good doctors.
Bottom line,if we had 50 government sponsored universities,standards would be low to acommodate all these universities,otherwise it would have been a waste of resources to build them.
What counts in the outside world is what you can do.Whether you scored A+ or E,what the employer wants is productivity,show me you can do it.It all comes back to demand,and supply,and the best use of our limited resources.
This is a classic case of using a hammer, to kill a mosquito, which is biting you. KCPE and KCSE both have shortcomings, but what other criteria is available to place students in Secondary School or University? I think that Mutua is suggesting scraping them because there are no national exams in the US, so he has nothing to compare them with. He wants to criticize, but what will he use as the basis, if there is nothing to compare with, in the US? But Kenya is not the US. Destroying a whole system, because it is not perfect, without offering any solution is short sighted and simplistic. You can only be a second rate copy someone else, but a first rate copy of yourself. Mutua, stop looking at Kenya through American eyes. We are not interested in changing who we are.
Makau is very confused and does not understand what he is talking about. One would think Makau had a little wisdom, knowledge and understanding in line with his academic credentials and mental acumen!? His suggestion is plainly damn! Something Ngei or Mulu Mutisia would never dare recommend to any generation - past or present! Kinda feel sorry for the youth who May look up to him for material advise as he misleads them in broad daylight! How selfish - really selfish!!?
which exams did this genius do in Kenya?
Born here in this wonderful country . Took flight to USA and for more than 3 decades he has developed hate worse than the hate We receive from racists in the country he lives.
offer alternatives but not primary school boy arguments at your age and level of education
What is good about Kenya according to you? Why do you come to this horrible country every other time?
Well, the country was only good to him when it gave him “food stamps” to fill his Tammy! He likes to curse a hand that fed him when he needed it most!
I have listened to him on Heff Koinange Live where he sounded quite semi-illiterate! A possibility he never took any standardized test any where!! And he did, they just gave him a free pass for his blackness!
Guys stop wasting your time discussing this idiot calling himself scholar mutua.Everytime he talks i wonder which schools did he go to juu he doesn't reason like someone who have bin in any school.Bure kabisa
Prof. Mutua. Pliz tell Kenya to INSTEAD scrape this Idea of Primary and High School dailers leaving their homes at 5am in the Morning to be at School at 5:30 and 6am. This is not just Punishment and Juvenile sleep deprivation but also: On their way to School, these "Early" trend has Increasingly been Exposing some School girls to the "Wee" hour Sexual abuse, Rape, Juvenile pregnancies, and worse: Sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Kadhalika (by mostly Bora-bodas).