Monday 28th March was a significant day for the education sector in Kenya. The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results were being announced. KCPE is an exam upon which the results determine whether one will proceed to high school having been in primary school for eight years. Apart from announcing results, education stakeholders use the exam outcomes to gauge other parameters as well such as transition to other levels of education, gender parity in schools as well as the conditions and access to basic education institutions. Demographic disparities are also discussed here, through statements like 'special needs' students or those that do exams in borstal institutions.
In as much as media coverage is good, it also paints the wrong picture for pupils with disabilities. Their accomplishments are treated like something out of the ordinary while amplifying the challenges they had to overcome to perform instead of thinking of ways to ease the access and integration of pupils with disabilities in school. In 2014, the Government began an integration programme in public schools as an easier way of speeding up inclusion efforts in educational institutions. Instead of highlighting the disability in media coverage of pupils with disabilities, why not ask the progress of the integration programme? Are teachers well equipped for such a programme? Is it well funded? In my opinion, it beats logic to say a pupil with a disability walked 1.5 kilometers to and from school everyday and got the highest marks. The question is, wasn't there a way to make the movements easier or move the pupil to a nearer school or a boarding facility? What is the state of the road being used for the movements? In as much as such stories are a good source of motivation, they only show how comfortable we are to the challenges of pupils with disabilities in educational institutions.
The fact that there are a handful of performers in the national exams should also be a rallying call to address the needs of learners with disabilities in relation to the teaching methods at school. What if a learner has down syndrome for example and is made to sit the exam like other learners? Would that be a fair way of determining the performance of the learner? To reflect the performance of such a child, you need to change the pedagogy. In the University, there are oral exams for medical students after written and practical exams. How about having oral exams for learners with cerebral palsy and cannot write legibly? President Kenyatta made the recommendation when he visited Joytown Secondary for Physically Handicapped students in 2015. The reporting by the Ministry of Education should be that teachers have been trained to undertake oral exams for learners with disabilities. It is the only way we can reduce cases of students with disabilities decreasing in number in institutions of higher learning and condemning them to missing out on economic opportunities simply because they performed dismally as a result of something they are not in control of.
It should also be a time to advocate for increased inclusion in career specific areas like Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas. How else can we increase interest in Assistive Technology if barriers to STEM are not addressed? Barriers to STEM include discrimination to STEM opportunities to learners with disabilities as a result of their disability and not their ability. The exam should be used as an opportunity to address these challenges instead of passing learners with disabilities as motivation. Government could also utilize the exams to gauge the accessibility to educational tools for leaners with disabilities such as braille and exploring financing options to ease the access to such tools.
Let exams be used to measure progress and the processes that measure the progress instead of celebrating outcome without giving a thought on the processes that influence the outcome. Like they say during exam times, you cannot fatten the bull on the market day.