Why students post poor results in agriculture

By Andanje Wakhungu
Most schools in the country have continued to record poor performance in agriculture subject in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) since 2016, a workshop for teachers has been told.
This is despite agriculture sector being the mainstay for the country.
Agriculture was considered a booster subject where students could earn marks to fill and improve in other subjects, which they did not perform well, but this has over the years changed with many students countrywide failing the subjects.
It is through this concern that teachers in Kakamega North Sub-County met in a workshop that brought on board agriculture examiners to brainstorm on what could be the reason and the best way to overcome the situation.
Wakasiaka Mwichabe, an agriculture teacher and examiner, took the initiative to find out why agriculture has become the hardest subject to pass across the country and came up with several reasons leading to this.
In his address during the workshop, Mwichabe revealed that many teachers were not aware that there were two syllabuses for the subject one being the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) and the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), which has a number of lessons that the teachers should use for scheming, planning their work and extension lesson planning, whereas the KNEC one does not have a number of lessons but has the skills that ought to be tested in every area hence should be used in the preparations of lesson notes and giving tasks to students to discover on their own what is required.
He said projects in and outside class should be in line with the KNEC syllabus because it has the levels of testing on the cognitive levels of testing.
It was also noted that the teachers needed capacity building after it was discovered that many were unable to set a test item to students because after being taught measurement evaluation in college, nothing else has happened.
Mwichabe, who is the Principal St Augustine Bondeni Secondary and a PhD student at Kibabii University, said the main challenge is about pedagogy applied by teachers.
The agricultural researcher said that teachers should use the simple techniques especially in handling challenging areas such as economics to students.
“It is the practical approach to the teaching of agriculture that is going to change the results, if it is about a tractor take them to the garage to see and learn about the features of the machine.”
He said the old syllabus was evaluated and a new one put in place since 2006, noting that some teachers are still stuck to the old one.
He warned teachers against teaching students to pass exams but instead empower them to acquire the skills as it will subject them to more practical work.
Principal Salvation Army Matioli Secondary, who is also the patron of the Kakamega North agriculture committee Ruth Mayavi, said it was important for them to call in the senior examiners to come and point to them where they were doing wrong.
“We have realized that we were using outdated revision materials and mode of answering questions,” she said.
Teachers questioned why students were getting poor grades in the subject insinuating that KNEC database was only awarding students marks for theory alone leaving 40 marks from practical.