Lower Entry Grades, Lower Results?Kenya Lowered the Bar for Teachers.
Almost 4 in 10 trainee teachers have been told to retake their exams. Of 25,098 candidates who sat the Diploma in Primary Teacher Education (DPTE) exam, 9,792 were referred by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC). That is 39 per cent.
KNEC's chief executive, Dr David Njengere, links the results to a change in entry rules. Teacher colleges used to ask for a mean grade of C (plain) and good results in key subjects such as mathematics and English. After the Presidential Working Party on Education Reform recommended easing the rules in 2023, because too few students qualified, those rules were relaxed. Njengere says the grades students bring in are closely tied to how they perform at the end. He also stresses that the results are provisional and need a full analysis.
I believe the warning is hard to ignore. Colleges were short of students, so the bar was lowered to fill places. But a student who starts a diploma without a firm grounding in core subjects will find it hard to catch up. And this cohort will soon teach children the same basics.
Still, the trainees should not carry all the blame. They met the rules that were set for them. The country has also moved to Competency-Based Education, which asks more of teachers. Hesbon Otieno, deputy secretary-general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers, says colleges need enough facilities and skilled tutors to train teachers for this system. Whether they have them is a question officials must answer openly.
KNEC and the colleges have set up resits for January 2027. That helps the thousands of trainees now waiting. But resits treat the symptom, not the cause.
Two steps would help. First, the Ministry of Education should review the entry rules and test whether lower grades really lead to weaker results. Second, if the rules stay as they are, colleges need extra support for weaker students, such as catch-up lessons in core subjects, backed by real funding.
Teachers shape every other profession. Getting more people into training matters, but not at the cost of the quality of those who graduate.
