In my previous post talking about the KSCE results and the best way to visualise the radical change that the year 2016 was, I began to form a hypothesis that this change (66% got a grade of D+ or worse compared to about 45% in previous years) would led to a relaxing in the entry requirements for students entering university in 2017.

In Kenya, the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) is tasked with determining which university and course students are placed in based on a number called a cutoff point (a combination of overall grade and subjects chosen and how well you performed in those subjects). While students do have the option to enter university as a private student, which entry requirements are set by the university, placement by KUCCPS means that you enter as a government sponsored student which means your school fees will be heavily subsidised by the government. In a country with high poverty rates like ours, it’s no wonder there’s so much pressure on students during KCSE.

Last year (2016) after the KCSE results were released, my friend Chris Orwa, a data scientist, wrote a blogpost analysing the data on the performance of the past years, looking to see what changed in 2016. It’s a good post and you are encouraged to have a look at it. However, I had one problem with it, the visualisation he used. I  told him that I thought I could do better.

Last week, Friday, my lecturer announses that we’ll be having our exam the next week Friday. Being that we’ll only be having two exams for this whole course it coud be considered major!

Anyway he, the lecturer, goes on to talk about cheating and how he can tell when people are cheating but the things he was talking about were for catching amatuers! If he new all the skills my old classmates in high school developed he’d be shocked!! On that note I have to mention that I heard that Nairobi Uni uses CCTV for exams!!! As in WTF!!! Let the children copy,dub,lift and cheat! It doesn’t mean they don’t know…they just forgot on that particular day!