At least 60 per cent of KCSE candidates from Kitui has failed to join colleges and technical training institutions because they failed the exam for the last five years.
Top academician Professor Paul Wambua said the situation was deteriorating and asked political leaders to stop their indifference.
The Embu University chancellor said the students obtained D and E grades. The same trend has been noticed in Makueni and Machakos counties, Wambua said citing "reliable data."
“Those people are unemployable. They cannot get formal employment and their only way out is to engage in informal employment. Even then, they lack the capital to employ themselves by starting their own business. They are condemned to unsavoury activities like drug abuse,” Wambua said.
He asked leaders from the region to address the poor transition rate right from primary to secondary and university.
“We risk being eclipsed from the education map in the next 10 years,” Wambua told the Star on the phone Thursday.
His concern followed the findings of a report showing more than half of KCSE candidates from Kitui did not score grades that enable them to be placed in universities or Tvets over the last five years.
The report was released by the office of the Kitui county director of education Salesa Adana. It says that 47,392 candidates scored between E and D+ grades over the last five years. It singled out 2017 as the year in which Kitui candidates posted the worst performance with only 12,247 candidates C- grade and above.
Edited by P. Obuya
