As the country’s education system transitions from the 8-4-4 to the Competency Based Education (CBE), stakeholders and parents in Lari sub-county have raised concern over poor results in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results.
They are worried if the trend will continue to be witnessed in this year’s exam.
According to the 2025 results, only one student scored an A in the KCSE exam while 2,209 students scored between D+ and D- out of 3,918 candidates.
The report also shows that 412 students scored an E in the exam, and some schools had best students scoring a C-, a D+, and even below.
According to one worried parent, Simon Wainaina, the sub-county did not perform well compared to the year before last, since it had a mean score of 3.2629 while in 2024, it had a mean score of 4.2610.
Wainaina said they are worried about how the KCSE candidates will perform this year and how the senior schools will handle the CBE.
”We would want to know what is happening,” he said.
Led by Kiambu County Parents Association chairman Samuel Wanjema, the parents said they feel that the schools were wasting their children’s time.
He said the teachers’ core business is to ensure all students cover the syllabus and are ready to sit for an exam, including the national examination.
”As parents, we have done our best. We have paid anything that is needed, we have bought stationery, uniforms and ensured that our children are in school,” Wanjema said.
Former Lari Kirenga Member of County Assembly Joseph Karichu said the trend is worrying and needs to be addressed well since it affects the future of many students.
He said that university entry was getting lower each year, an issue that should worry residents.
Karichu, who is now eyeing the Lari parliamentary seat, said that better strategies are needed to motivate students and teachers so that the performance can be improved.
The politician, who is allied to former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s DCP party, said that at this time and age, education needs to be put at the forefront by the three pillars: parents, students, and teachers.
”We need to ensure that we have raised the grades our students are earning. If we don’t, we risk seeing senior schools performing poorly too, something which will be very unfortunate,” the MP aspirant said.
Wanjema, who comes from the sub-county, decried that a lack of motivation and poor follow-up on education by stakeholders are the main reasons.
”Some of our teachers are not motivated at all. A lot of teachers have lost touch with their work since no one is following them on how they are handling their classrooms,” Wanjema said.
”The reduction of money paid to schools has also been another reason for being demotivated since chances of them earning some money from another avenue were reduced,” he added.
However, speaking in Kimende town, Karichu urged the stakeholders to work as a team so as to improve the mean score.
”As we work on improving our mean score, the students will work hard and get better grades that will see students joining universities.”
Wanjema also noted that nearly all day and boarding secondary schools have enough classrooms, laboratories, home science labs, and other amenities so as to offer learners a conducive environment to learn from.
