By Roy Hezron
Public schools have outshined private schools in the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) scoping 10 positions in the top 15 positions countrywide.
Speaking during the release of the examinations at Kenya National Examination Council’s head offices in Nairobi today, Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha stated that the top three positions were taken by students from Public Schools adding that the 2020 KCPE performance improved compared to 2019.
“Although the mark of the highest candidate dropped from 440 to 433 in 2020, the mean average performance and quality of grades for all candidates are higher,” said Prof Magoha.
He added that “In particular, I am impressed that public schools have shone in the 2020 KCPE, scooping 10 of the top 15 overall slots in the Examination. Additionally, of the top 15 places, female candidates have taken eight places, including the first three overall slots.”
The list of top 15 candidates is shown in the table below.
In subject performance, English Composition, Kiswahili Lugha, Kenyan Sign Language Objective, Mathematics and Religious Education recorded improved performance compared to 2019, while English Language, Kiswahili Insha, Kenyan Sign Language Composition, Science and Social Studies, recorded a drop in performance in the year 2020 when compared 2019.
“I wish to commend all the teachers, parents and candidates for this good performance achieved during a very difficult period,” noted Prof Magoha.
A total of 1,179,192 candidates sat the examination in 28,460 centres across the country, who include 590,450 (representing 50.07 per cent) were boys and 588,742 (representing 49.93 per cent) were girls.
This was an increase by 95,736 (representing 8.84 per cent) in 2019 which recorded 1,083,456 candidates sat the examination. Male and female candidates increased by 46,868 (representing 8.62 per cent) and 48,868 (representing 9.25 per cent) respectively
