Every year when national examination results are released, familiar scenes unfold across the country. High-performing schools celebrate. Others brace for anger. In some cases, frustrated parents storm school gates, jeer teachers, and lock principals out with ultimatums: transfer or deliver better results next year.
In one disturbing incident last year, the principal of Raganga Secondary School in Kisii County was reportedly flogged and ejected after poor results. Such acts must be condemned unequivocally. Violence and humiliation have no place in education—and they solve nothing.
The frustration parents feel is real. Education demands enormous sacrifice, and exams like KCSE and KCPE often feel like a final judgment on that investment. But when accountability turns into aggression, we begin to damage the very system we rely on to improve outcomes.
The question is not whether parents should demand accountability. They should. The real question is how that demand is expressed—and whether it builds schools or breaks them.
Blaming and shaming a principal misplaces responsibility. A school’s performance is never the work of one individual. It reflects a web of factors: student discipline, parental support, teacher effectiveness, resource availability, foundational learning from earlier schools, and even broader community conditions like health and security.
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Turning a principal into a scapegoat oversimplifies a complex problem—and models the wrong lesson to students about how adults respond to failure.
Ultimatums also destabilize learning. Teachers working under threat focus more on survival than preparation. Newly posted principals need time to understand a school’s context—time often lost in the rush to “fix” results. Predictably, performance stagnates. Fear has never been an effective teaching strategy.
Data from KNEC consistently shows that performance is shaped as much at home as at school. Parental literacy, study environments, attendance, and nutrition all matter. Yet public outrage rarely confronts these factors with equal intensity. True accountability demands a broader lens.
Still, parents are right to expect better. School leaders manage public trust and resources. When results decline over time without explanation or a recovery plan, communities deserve answers. The problem is not the demand—it is the method.
We need to replace ultimatums with structure.
Within two weeks of results, schools should hold formal academic review forums involving Boards of Management, Parents Associations, and administrators. These should be data-driven sessions, not emotional confrontations—examining subject performance, identifying gaps, and evaluating past interventions.
From this, schools must develop clear improvement plans with measurable milestones. When parents see a roadmap, they shift from critics to partners.
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Accountability must also be shared. Teachers should commit to syllabus coverage, remedial teaching, and timely feedback. Principals must ensure transparency and support staff. Parents must reinforce attendance, supervise homework, and engage consistently with schools. Students, too, must take ownership of their learning. When responsibility is collective, failure can no longer be personalized.
Sub-County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers should act as mediators in these processes. Their involvement can replace confrontation with evidence-based decisions—ensuring that any administrative action follows due process rather than public pressure.
We must also learn to value progress, not just top grades. A school that improves from a mean score of 3.2 to 4.1 may have achieved more meaningful growth than one that maintains a high average. Recognizing such progress encourages persistence over panic.
Above all, the law must be enforced. The Basic Education Act protects schools from disruption and educators from abuse. Violence, intimidation, and forced closures must remain unacceptable—without exception.
Schools, like resilient trees, go through dry seasons. A poor exam year is not the end—it is a signal to prune, support, and rebuild. And like a river, the forces shaping a child’s education—parents, teachers, and school leaders—must move together. Progress comes not from confrontation, but from alignment.
Let us demand results—but from the whole system, including ourselves. Let us replace anger with analysis, and threats with plans.
Only then will accountability lead to improvement—and our schools become places where learning thrives, not where blame takes root.
By Enock Okong’o
Okong’o is a correspondent with Education News covering South-Nyanza region.
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