When basics are gotten right in primary school, C4 poor grades will be sorted 

‘Unless children can read, they can’t learn to the full. They can’t discover their own talents and interests’—Former Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) in England

Last month, the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), Dr. David Njengere defended the performance of learners in Subcounty Schools currently Category 4, (C4)  in KCSE examinations against their counterparts in National, Sub-County and County Schools.

“The entry behaviour of these students is therefore lower than those who join National, Sub-County and County Schools,” Njengere observed, saying that comparison between the students and those in the other categories of schools was unfair.

During Elimu Mashinani TV show, Njengere said that most of the students the Subcounty schools admit scored 200 marks while those who join National Schools scored 400 marks and above.

He, however, noted that 13 percent of the students in Subcounty Schools scored C+ and above, saying with a supportive teaching and learning environment, the students in these schools could post far better results than they were doing.

Entry behaviour refers to the relevant knowledge, attitudes or skills which the student already possesses upon admission into secondary school.

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What educational disadvantages do the students who join subcounty schools face? Where do the disadvantages begin?

The first disadvantage these students have is difficult in reading. Most students who enroll in subcounty schools arrive with poor reading skills. They arrive in secondary without the grade-level expectations in reading for the four years of secondary education.

Last year, two NGO involved in Education, Zizi Afrique Foundation and Usawa Agenda released a report entitled Education in Kenya Research Report. The report indicated that only 4 in 10 Grade 4 learners could read and understand a Grade 3-level English story while only 3 in 10 Grade 6 learners could not read and understand a Grade 3-level English story.

The report indicated that the majority of these learners were from the public primary school system. Majority of learners who join Sub County schools belong to the category of children with poor reading proficiency.

Literacy requires proper reading instruction and practice. It requires years of the labour of teachers—from grade one to three.

“The harshest handicap we can impose on children in our public schools is to fail to teach them by third grade to read well. When we fail, the child fails. When we create for her or him a cycle of continued failure, diminished self-esteem, lowered self-expectations, and decreased effort. It does not matter what book we hand to a child who has not read. the door is shut,” Lynn Feilding, Nancy Kerry and Paul Rosier argue in their book, The 90% reading Goal.

Put brutally, the majority of learners who join secondary education have had a poor foundation in the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic.

This is the baggage these students carry with them in grade four. In the early years—from pre primary to grade three—schools teach children how to read. It is in grade four, moving forward, that children read to learn.

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It follows that if you have not learned how to read, you cannot read to learn. Reading is a prerequisite for accessing the fund of knowledge—literature, history, science, mathematics—that constitute the curriculum. Reading proficiency is the gateway into the curriculum.

So important is reading that it has been a subject of public pronouncement by political leaders in other lands.

“You cannot succeed if you cannot read. All Texas children must learn the one skill that makes the difference; Reading. That is why I set clearest and most propound goal for Texas; that every child, each and every child, should learn to read grade level by grade level and by third grade and should continue reading at grade level or better throughout his or her public-school career,” Governor George Bush noted in his State of the State address in March 1997—long before he became US President later.

It has been my argument that students who join Subcounty schools arrive in secondary school when they are several grades behind in their reading proficiency.

It is those who are left behind that suffer. Those with significant learning gaps in knowledge, skills and attitudes. It is not enough to attend school. You must learn to make school attendance meaningful.

The second disadvantage they meet in subcounty schools is that curriculum delivery is conducted as though these students have the same aptitudes, the same motivation to learn as those who join national schools. They face double jeopardy here.

No effort is made to provide some remediation in reading, and mathematics to bridge the knowledge and skills gap the students have.

The third disadvantage the students face in subcounty schools is lack of essential facilities for learning even though haltingly. Most lack laboratories, libraries, and other essential educational infrastructure like playgrounds.

In addition, the schools don’t have broad-based limited curriculum. They mainly offer academic subjects, and a few applied sciences.

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They don’t offer technical subjects like electricity, woodwork, metal work, Art and Design, Power Mechanics—subjects that are likely to attract the attention of those who could join Technical and Vocational institutions.

Nearly all these students in Cluster IV (formerly subcounty) schools are teachable. They have the brainpower necessary for learning.

Proposals to make subcounty schools centres of excellence:

First, the government should consider establishing remediation programmes first in grade 10 to address the learning shortfalls of learners who transit to secondary or senior schools particularly in C4 schools. That is where the problem of reading proficiency is acute.

Secondly, schools should implement the curriculum or cover the syllabus at the pace the policy makers in education prescribes.  The idea of rushing to finish the syllabus should be discarded in all schools. It makes learning a burden.

Third, the government should review the way it funds schools and introduce a kind of affirmative policy to address infrastructure gaps in subcounty schools. The current funding model based on enrollment of learners in schools is tenuous. It continues to inject money in national and extra-country schools for infrastructure the schools already have.

Fourthly, the government adopts reading policy and classroom practice that is firmly grounded in the science of reading.  It should base reading strategies from cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, and education that explains how children learn to read.

Over the years in government, I continually talked to highly knowledgeable and spirited staff at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and they assured me that the reading instructional strategy it has prescribed is based on phonics. I have been assured that it produces positive results when applied in teaching children at the earliest stages of schooling how to read.

I have, however, failed to understood why organisations like People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network, a National Assessment System for Monitoring Learner Achievement (NASMLA),  Zizi Afrique Foundation and Usawa Agenda gives us depressing reports about the state of reading fluency in grade4, the grade where children ought to learn how to reading.

Reports that indicate disturbing trends in reading fluency should induce action. Launch investigations into why children cannot learn at grade level despite the teaching beginning reading at the earliest levels of schooling.

Investigations could ultimately lead to providing some training to all teachers at the earliest years of learning, learning how to teach reading correctly among other interventions.

C4 schools shouldn’t be the black sheep in our national education system. It has all the credentials to be centres of excellence. Let’s address the problem upstream. Public primary schools. It is a public primary school. Not Sub County schools.

By Kennedy Buhere

Communication Specialist

buhere2003@gmail.com