By SEXING up last year's KSCE results, the Ministry of Education has unwittingly embarked on a journey to destroy the future of a whole generation. The pain and trauma caused by recalling examination results for readjustment is immeasurable. A failed examination council spells irreversible DOOM for Kenya's future.
Let us face it. The controversial results will have ripple effects that will reverberate worldwide. The loss of credibility in the eyes of global institutions which have hitherto trained Kenya's best brains. Kenyan students and graduates may soon find it very difficult securing admission and job vacancies outside our borders.
Nature NEVER defies the basic normal distribution which captures the indisputable central limit theorem. All excellent grades in any school must end up being weighted down by average performance. That last year's KCSE results were SEXED up is irrefutable. You can't fail to smell odours of our primitive politics rearing its ugly head in all these where schools in the right locations had 100% performances.
Superlative deception
Even a class of exclusive geniuses must produce the best and worst. It is disheartening to read that our schools are NOT spared our national pastime of hell-for-leather mentality to succeed at any cost. The most ridiculous was to have some schools ordering their candidates to buy mobile phones as accessories to aid in exam cheating.
It is the height of unforgivable irresponsibility to see Minister Ongeri trivialize such a phenomenon crisis to mere numbers. His claim that only about 4000 students were affected is not only insensitive but exposes the utter contempt Kenyan leaders hold their electorate. Never before has a leader played Russian roulette with many lives.
The only way to save face is to have last year's exams remarked and schools re-ranked. No amount of time buying will wash. The stakes here are phenomenally high. Just like the stolen polls, all went wrong at the headquarters with tallying. We must not allow the antics of vote stealing to be replicated in facets of our lives. It is a national shame.
The year 2007 will definitely go down in history as Kenyan's worst in all spheres. We are unwittingly processing a colossal heard of lost generation. And the effects of this superlative deception will surely come back to haunt us as a nation with devastating consequences.
All I can say is that at least these errors are not for the KCPE. KCSE graduates have time to manoever between highschool and college.
ReplyDeleteKCPE students are almost immediately enrolled in various secondary schools.
The ministry should make sure this never happens again.
Kama it was a problem tallying up simple votes sembuse KCSE results? Kenyans need to realize that we are one, a third world nation and two, a banana republic. While we are striving to keep up with technology ergo cell phones, we are still stuck in the primitive age when it comes to common sense issues and patriotism.
ReplyDeleteSo relax man, if you wasted all your high school time with your feet in a bucket of cold water at 3a.m studying while the other guys were in F2 kula-ing happy hiyo ndio maisha kenya sasa hivi. if your folks don't have money to send you abroad, you'd better improvise, adapt and over come your situation. Count yourself lucky that you weren't burned alive in the house of god.
Natupige magoti tuombe...Mungu Baba...
IF LASTNAME=K* OR M*
ReplyDeleteTHEN MATHSMARKS=MATHSMARKS+50
This is how the marks at LIMURU GIRLS were topped up. Even the weekest student who could have got 30% ended up with 80% which is an "A".
All Limuru Girls candidates got an A in Maths! Can you believe it fellow Kenyans?
It is not for nothing that the Ministry of Education has been 100%Mt Kenya community. This practise has been going on for avery long.
time. They have been reducing the marks of Western, Coast and Nyanza candidates artificially. Beth Mugo, Prof Mutahi are big suspects.
What a people are these? They steal elections and exams.
They are a damage to Kenya.
Solution: All the Kenyan universities must have their entrance exams in each faculty to determine who is really qualified. The exams should be conducted by an independent body Like Cambridge, Oxford, London or Princeton Examination council.
Remarking, recounting, reversing, retreating,...
ReplyDeleteIs this the way of life in Kenya?
What a pity!
Kenyan, this is called top-up era. Everything has to be topped up. They promised us a free and fair election, wapi! It was topped up properly. Then came free primary education! Wala! Parents have to top it up.Actually, it is the government that is topping up our efforts on this! Then this KCSE fiasco! This is topped up properly in favour of central province.
ReplyDeleteHow then can anyone explain what took place in our schools. Look at Limuru Girls and Friends Kamusinga. Kamusinga received 3 ...yes 3 different results. So which set of results are correct? How to you explain to students who had already celebrated an A or a B that those were actually wrong results? How pathetic!
Yet Limuru out did themselves. I can't believe that Limuru Girls had 100% (110As) in Maths yet they could only 19As in English yet even fewer As in other subjects! How is this possible? Does it means that these girls are only geniuses in maths and not other subjects? Or is it possible that they had the paper earlier and reversed before hand? Even if they had reversed the Maths paper there must be one or two students to forget the correct formulae for some maths question and therefore got a B! The only answer is that these marks were awarded abirtrarily! In any case, what is the easiest way of detecting cheating in an examination?
1. If answers are very similar. In this case if all the students failed the same question(s) or wrote in the same form and terminology;
2. If student overwhelmingly overperformed in onw subject and failed in the rest and/or performed averagely in other subjects.
3. The law of equal distribution does not allow all students to perform fairly the same in maths only without discriminations and discipancies!
This is outright rigging of examinations just like elections earlier!
Anon@3.45 very true and FYI any high school teacher will tell you that a HONEST excellent perfomance in maths almost guarantees same in other subject or at worst scieces. We have invited SHAME unto our shores oblivious of the aftermaths.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 3.01; how apt.
ReplyDeleteDecay everywhere; a sign of just how far down the drain we have let our country slide.
Anon 3.45 I second that. Which leads me back to politics.
ReplyDeleteI opined before that the merger...no, integration of ODM and PNU into goverment under so called power sharing will not solve the real problems bedeviling us. It will merely musk it and manage it on the surface. But underneath the tip is a monstrous ice burg of titanic proportions.
Add to that the fact that you can not expect the same characters who participated and/or were complicite in the stealing by topping up of votes, to suddenly see the light and put the nation before self. The time to do that came and passed with no one having the cajones to step up and call a spade a spade.
The other day, Obama stepped up and in the most candid way he dared to talk about race issues in the USA. Do you know what size balls someone in his position would have to have to do this? he did not wait for the story to die, nor did he double speak. he just laid out the truth as we all know it.
Now over in Kenya, our politicians and leaders now give themselves a pat in the back with the likes of Wako terming them as honorable (wo)men!
It has been a great disappointment for me that after looking up to the adults in my youth; I suddenly find out that they are empty and devoid of any sense of fairness among humanity. They act like scavengers. Eating up everything NOW.
Our whole culture needs a fresh look. Kids must be taught the benefits of honesty and integrity. And it doesn't help when we start corrupting them at high school.
this kibaki regime has soiled each and every sector that was once revered and respected.
ReplyDeletenot agency or institution has been spared, either it has been denied funds or services, or been favoured if a majority are from central kenya. those institutions so favored have in turn gone ahead to bias any service rendered to favour central kenyans at the expense of sound judgement, principles and integrity. in so doing the rest of kenya is summarily lumped up as being corrupt for the action of a these people.
we either need to seperate ourselves from these guys permanently or remove them from positions of authority altogether. they are untrustworthy, deceitful, arrogant, obnoxouis and utterly lacking in integrity.
the best end result is vote of no confidence in Kibaki in 18 months or self determination efforts be made seriously.
KUMEKUCHA?? THIS IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO HIT KENYA- AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED- PLEASE MAKE SURE THIS IS FOLLOWED- MOST KENYANS I KNOW FROM EVERY REGION EATS MAIZE IF NOT UGALI- GITHERI PORRIDGE E.T.C
ReplyDeleteDO THIS AMERICAN'S WANT TO FINISH AFRICANS? IS THIS THE NEW WORLD ORDER WE HEAR OF THAT THEY MUST REMOVE SOME BILLION PEOPLE FROM EARTH?? FREEMASON-ILLUMINATI NEW WORLD ORDER IF WE ARE TO BELEIVE WHAT WE READ?? IT STARTS FROM GENETICALLY ENGINEERING CROPS IN AFRICA- THEN ALL THOSE AIDS MEDICINES AND THE FREE INJECTIONS -
FORMER MINISTER KIRWA MUST BE FORCED TO SAY THE TRUTH!! THIS MAIZE WAS BEING DONATED TO FARMERS BY POLITICIANS (FARMERS WERE NOT AWARE THAT THIS SEEDS WERE GENETICALLY MODIFIED) PLEASE READ!!KNOWING KENYAN FARMERS THEY WOULD NOT HAVE AGREED TO USE THIS SEEDS!-- THE AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY MUST BE MADE TO LOOK FOR ALL THE FARMS THAT PLANTED THIS SEEDS AND TRY TO FOLLOW THE TRAIL AND RECALL AND DESTROY THIS MAIZE SEED AND ALSO TREAT THE SOIL!!
I'M REALLY PISSED OFF THAT WE CAN BE KILLING OUR OWN CHILDREN BY FEEDING THEM THIS MAIZE- ( THE DANGER LIKE IT SAYS IS KIDNEY FAILURE OR SOMETHING - MAYBE 9-10 YEARS AFTER CONSUMPTION- WHICH INFACT COULD MAKE ME A MURDERER OF MY OWN CHILDREN!!WHY BECAUSE I DIDN'T BOTHER TO LOOK OR PROTECT THEM BY IGNORING WHAT WAS WRITTEN IN THE NATION NEWSPAPER -!!
KUMEKUCHA- HELP MAKE PEOPLE DISCUSS IT AND WHEN PEOPLE DISCUSS IT GETS NOTICED AND GOES OUT TO THE MAIN STREAM!! LETS US PUSH THE POLITICIANS TO RECALL -THE MAIZE FROM ALL THOSE FARMS AND STOP THOSE FARMERS GROWING ANOTHER CROP UNTIL THE LAND IS TREATED!!! THANKS!!
Farmers planting maize that poses threat to humans
Story by JOHN MBARIA, Environment Correspondent
Publication Date: 3/23/2008
Farmers in one of Kenya’s largest grain-producing areas have been cultivating genetically modified maize that is potentially harmful to human health without knowing it.
The Sunday Nation can exclusively report that the relevant seeds are sourced from a South African company that is a subsidiary of Dupont, a leading US-based biotechnology firm.
This was revealed to the Sunday Nation by officials of the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC), a body that brings together 45 farmer groups, NGOs and civil society bodies.
KBioC took samples of maize seeds from agrovet shops in various towns in Rift Valley to Eurofin GeneScan, a specialised laboratory in Europe.
After tests, it was conclusively established that the sample was contaminated with traces of MON810, a genetically modified maize variety owned and marketed by Monsanto, an American biotechnology company.
Documents made available to the Sunday Nation by KBioC officials show that they had taken 42 samples of maize seeds from agrovet shops in Kibwezi, Machakos, Thika, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kitale. The officials got several maize seed varieties owned and marketed by local and international seed companies and then ground them into flour. After preliminary testing, 19 of the samples were found to be suspect and shipped to Eurofin for further tests.
“It was then that Eurofin isolated phb30v53, a variety that is owned and patented by Pioneer, a South African company,” said Dr Daniel Maingi, a scientist with KBioC. Several South African and European media have since covered the saga.
The variety is named after Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., a subsidiary of the US-based biotech multinational, Dupont. In its website, Pioneer describes itself as “the world’s leading developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics to farmers worldwide”. It has been a long-time competitor of Monsanto.
Pioneer denies
But now, Pioneer denies that it has been deliberately exporting genetically modified maize to Kenya. In a telephone interview with the Sunday Nation, the head of Pioneer in Africa, Jeff Johnson, denied that his company sells contaminated maize seeds.
“We respect the Kenyan law and go to great lengths to ensure that our seeds are not contaminated. Indeed, our testing protocol conforms to international standards,” he said.
Even then, Mr Johnson said that it is not possible anywhere to ensure that maize seeds are 100 per cent devoid of biotechnology material. “Although I have not seen the test results, I am not ruling out anything. It could be possible that the seeds sold in Kenya might be contaminated.” However, he added that such contamination is insignificant and is unlikely to compromise the quality of his company’s seeds.
Speaking from South Africa, Mr Johnson also said that his company is involved in the marketing of genetically modified maize to countries where it is approved. “We are not selling any such maize in Kenya or any other country in East Africa,” he said.
Information on the contamination of the Pioneer maize variety was passed on to relevant arms of the government during a National Biosafety Committee meeting held on February 27 at the offices of the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) in Nairobi.
In attendance, among others, were representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) and the University of Nairobi.
During the meeting, KEPHIS representatives revealed that the former Minister for Agriculture, Kipruto arap Kirwa, released the maize seed variety in question into the Kenyan market in 2006 “after it passed all the field test procedures”.
The minutes of the meeting also reveal that the Pioneer variety originates from the United States and is reproduced in South Africa before being shipped to Kenya where it is distributed by FarmChem Seed Co. Ltd.
The minutes reveal that on October 31, 2006, FarmChem imported an initial consignment of half a tonne.
Long-running suspicions
The revelation confirms long-running suspicions among many Kenyan farmers that they could have been cultivating genetically modified varieties of maize without being aware of it.
“Initially, we were given the suspect seeds as donations by politicians and we planted them. But when we harvested, the maize started rotting almost immediately,” said Isabel Wandati, a farmer and official of a women’s group in Butere.
She laments that she finds it impossible to replant the same maize and blames the Kenya Bureau of Standards for not properly inspecting the relevant maize variety.
She adds that instead of arming farmers in Butere with the relevant information on the variety, the local agricultural extension officials have been championing its cultivation.
There is now a danger that the country’s entire maize crop could be contaminated with traces of MON810. This is because maize is a cross-pollinated crop and pollen that bears traces of MON810 might be transported by wind from contaminated farms into uncontaminated ones.
The variety is patented by Monsanto and is banned in several European countries because of its negative impact on the environment and its harmful consequences on such useful insects, such as butterflies and bees.
Research conducted in some European countries had shown that feeding mice on the variety damaged their kidneys and livers.
However, its effects on humans is yet to be fully studied since maize is generally not used as human food in Europe and America. It is instead fed to horses and other domestic animals.
Once the country’s maize crop is contaminated with genetically modified varieties, Kenya risks losing traditional hybrid varieties that were painstakingly developed by KARI at the taxpayer’s expense.
Genetically modified grains are injected with bacteria that produce poison to kill nuisance pests and resist adverse weather conditions.
However, these poisonous bacteria have the downside of potentially destroying the soil by killing helpful bacteria and insects. Also, they compromise food safety and might prove to be harmful to humans over time once the grains are consumed.
Chris. I beg you. anon 2.56 and 3.01 pm are close and fom their language as disssapointed as I am. Chris. what we ned is a forum to ask ourselves as kenyans what is REALLY wrong with us. Havent we realized that we cannot legislate ourselves out of bad character. As the saying goes. 'you can take the boy from the bad eyes but you cant take the bad eyes from the boy'. The exams are just a symptom of an over lying problem that afflicts us as kenyans. Our problem is psychological. It CANNOT be fixed by better laws. Look at all that has gone on in kenya in the last 6 months. The flawed elections, the violence (orcherstrated or not) i for one know it was. The IDP's now suffering while the people who put them where they are sit together to argue about the spoils. And we seem to find that ok. I can tell you now the investigation into the elections will be a complete and utter waste of time. The Truth and Reconcilliation will be a complete and utter waste of time. The people who matter in Kenya have already got what they want. So there.... Dont we realise that the real problem is us. Its you anon. You chris. Me others. Our attitude.....our perception....our glorification of money....leaders.....politics.....position...ethnicity... This is what is killing Kenya. Its you and me!!! We must realise that our morality as a nation is corrupted. Thats the REAL problem. Why were Christians slaughtering Christians....and Muslims the same??? How do you explain that. No new laws or constitution can fix this problem. You cant run away from who you are and hide behind 'better laws'. Those dont change the caracter of the person. We as kenyans, inside are corrupted. As individuals and as society and thats what we must find ways first to accept then to fix.
ReplyDeleteTaabu Kenya is more rotten than we ever thought. I shudder to think for how many years this exam sexing has been going on and how many brilliant boys and girls have been denied a chance they deserve. And others given one they do not deserve. It's just too sad. It's good though that this has come to the public knowledge at this time when we're turning a new leaf.
ReplyDeleteOngeri spent a lot of time negotiating for peace in Kenya. Let him know that proper tallying of exam results is also part of the peace we're searching for.
I am at pains to write this. I live abroad and know how hard it is to get visa to go to Europe, Japan and USA thanks to our passport being blacklisted by most western countries. Our passport was one of the most pleasant documents from any African country till we opened our doors for Somali crooks to use it to flood Europe to claim assylum.
ReplyDeleteHaving almost lost the prestige of our passport, we were left with one very important paper to present before international community and institutions with some respect and pride. Our Kenyan Certificates be they CPE, (KCPE) KCE (KCSE), KACE ("A" levels for you who don't know it), Colleges and Universities. But not any longer! Thanks to Kibaki's appettite to top ups!
These guys raped our flagling democracy! And now our education! What else are they going to rape next?
Who will help us? Very soon our students will be asked to sit for all sorts of exams before they can be allowed to join colleges in Uganda and even TZ countries whose educations are slightly below par compared to Kenya's! How absurd can it get?
Does anyone see this scenerio as I do?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. What a petty!
Running for "public" office in Kenya is first a conduit to untold riches and nothing else. The actual service to the people is secondary. I think the only kenyans who volunteered for the public good were those who fought and died for independence along with mau mau. These other characters saw an oppotunity to govern and htiched their band wagon to the struggle. Once there, they simply blackenized what the colonialist had started.
ReplyDeleteI can understand corruption as a way to help develop your home area. Harambees cost money and most of these leaders dole out many times more cash than they earn.
Where does it come from?
The introduction of CDF was supposed to curtail this and equally distribute the national cake.
What I can't understand is topping up certain areas and syphoning other areas. Why should anyone be afraid to compete nationally?
It is very sad.
Students should be judged by looking at a series of exams from form 1 to form 4 and not the current system of only one exam. What if a brilliant student is depressed or sick during KCSE? They will just end up being failures despite being brilliant over the years. Get this ever scandalous KCSE out of the way. Mtihani house (KNEC) have proved they can't run a kiosk, let alone a national exam. When Exam boss Mr Wesanga was asked if he would quit over the exam fiasco, he said something like....it's not just him...it's a chain of event's and others above him...Sounds familiar in Kenya, doesn't it? Remember one Kivuitu?
ReplyDeleteAntonio
KISII HIGH suffered disqualification after some anomalies were detected in KCSE 2005.
ReplyDeleteCant someone tell me why cant Limuru Girls, Nyeri High, Mangu, etc be disqualified. All 110 Candidates in some schools in CP got As in Maths. Are some schools in Kenya above the LAW?
What a shame to Kenya. The LAW must apply to everyone not only to Western and Kisii Nyanza.
Wacheni kuzusha. We alk stole!
ReplyDelete