Thanksgiving for KCSE Results

Students, as well as schools, live and die by the results of the KCSE (Kenya Comprehensive Secondary Education) exams. All secondary education is focused on it. Those of you that know education in the States know how stressful the state assessments are. That is nothing compared to the KCSE.

School's reputations are totally based on the KCSE results. If the school obtains good results, students want to attend and are willing to pay the school fees. The higher your test scores the better quality students you can attract. The higher your test scores, the higher the fees can be. A student's future is based on how well they do on the KCSE. If you can score a mean grade of B, the Kenyan government will pay your tuition at university. Your major at university is based on the KCSE scores. There is such a thing as a parallel program in which you can attend university, but you must pay all expenses. The majority of Kenyans are not able to afford this. In 2010 the KCSE scores at St. Monica's dropped from the previous year. To put it mildly, this was a disaster. Parents were concerned and upset. Teacher's reputations were on the line. We had many a staff meeting about what changes needed to be made to increase test scores. Several meeting were held with students about what they needed to do to score well.

We had great news when the KCSE score were released in late February. (See the previous blog.) Our scores were the highest they have ever been. We had many alum stop by to congratulate us. Bishop Crawley who is on our Board of Governors stopped by to offer congratulations. He also donated $200 to celebrate with a feast. As he is a busy man we had to wait almost a month until his schedule was free so he could hold a Thanksgiving Mass with us on our feast day. It was indeed a day of celebration. The day started with a Mass celebrated by the Bishop, Fr. Peter (the students' favourite), and Fr. Maurice, our new school chaplain. We had singing, dancing, poetry and drama presentations and ended with a feast. For additional photos click here.