Trace school dropouts

A major challenge in the education sector today is to establish the whereabouts of more than half a million learners, who cannot be accounted for as their peers take this year’s national examinations and assessments.

At least 261,000 learners, who should have sat this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA), are nowhere. And this raises questions about the government’s 100 per cent education transition policy.

Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) data shows that 1,233, 852 candidates sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination in 2022, and yet only 1,048,355 registered for this year’s KCSE exam. The 185,497 difference represents 15.03 per cent of the 2022 cohort. So, where are the rest?

Also, while 1,281,210 sat the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) in 2023, only 1,206, 028 registered for this year’s KJSEA. The difference is 75,182, or 5.87 per cent. These learners, who sat the lower national tests, would have been expected to continue to the next stage but cannot be accounted for.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba says a number of factors, including deaths, account for those who have not turned up for the examinations and assessments that have just begun. According to him, some may have switched to international schools, and there are also cases of dropouts due to teenage pregnancies and illnesses.

But the dropouts due to teenage pregnancies and illnesses and transfers to international curricula only account for a tiny fraction of the learners. The Education authorities and the administration must do more to establish the whereabouts of the bulk of those missing.

As access to basic education is a constitutional right, there is a need to track down the dropouts and readmit them to schools or train them in skills to become more productive instead of being abandoned to just waste away.

Follow our WhatsApp channel for breaking news updates and more stories like this.