St Ignatius Mukumu Boys High School in Kakamega County is on the spot for sending away 40 students for scoring grade D in their end-of-term exams.
The decision by the school’s management to block the students from joining Form Four and registering for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam caught the parents by surprise.
The parents who were in shock spent several hours at the school’s main gate on the Kakamega-Kisumu road protesting the decision.The school had asked parents to accompany their children to school on Friday for a meeting.
The school’s deputy head teacher Luga Sogoni is reported to have told the parents that their children could not be allowed to continue learning at the school after they performed poorly in their end-of-term exams.
He said the school would give a chance to children who agreed to repeat Form Three so that they could improve their performance in the exams.
“We were shocked by the decision and our attempts to plead with deputy head teacher to readmit the students was rejected. He asked us to leave the school compound, saying his decision was final,” said a parent who had travelled from Mombasa to attend the meeting at the school.
Parents interviewed said Mr Sogoni told them that since their children had scored grade D in their exams, they would not be allowed to resume studies at the school.
“He told us that the school policy does not allow children who are academically weak to register for exams at the institution. The deputy head teacher said the best we can do is take our children to join day schools so that they can have a change of environment and focus on their studies as they prepare for the KCSE exams,” said one of the parents.
The parents camped outside the school gate with their children, protesting the decision to send away the learners for poor academic performance.
Four of the parents stood their ground and drove to the Kakamega County director of Education office to report the incident.
Their children were readmitted to the school after an official made a phone call to the institution.
Kakamega County Director of Education Dickson Ogonya directed that all the affected students should be readmitted to the school unconditionally.
“After learning of the incident, I visited the school on Friday evening and held a meeting with the deputy head teacher. I have directed that the learners should be allowed back to school unconditionally to resume their lessons. I will be visiting the school on Monday to find out whether my instructions have been followed,” said Mr Ogonya.
Mr Sogoni had asked the parents to report back to the school on Thursday with their children but he had not indicated whether they would be readmitted.
The school posted a mean of 6.474 in the 2022 KCSE exams. The school had one candidate scoring A plain, two candidates scored A minus and three candidates got B plus.
Twenty-eight candidates scored B plain, 54 other got B minus and 53 had a C plus.
The school had 141 candidates qualifying for direct university entry in the 2022 KCSE exam.
