| dc.description.abstract | The key purposes of public examinations have remained that of selection and certification since the first written public examinations were introduced over 2000 years ago in China to select the most bale citizens for positions in the civil service. The Chinese system of public examination spread into Europe in the 16th century and to USA in the 19th century. Governments in those days were the main employers and competitive examinations were considered fair means of selecting a few competent people for governmental service.
In schools, the public examination system seems to have a short but still considerable history. Its use in schools in Kenya can be traced back to the colonial times and have continued to be used ever since. Even today some African countries continue to adopt the British and French models in the development administration and processing of public examinations ( Van der Berg, 2004 ) . Kenya has developed its own examination system structured on British and French models.
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Public examination systems in Kenya may be paying little attention to the disparities that exist in terms of opportunities for learning for individual learners and their impact on access to education and employment. This is depicted when a common national examination is set for all students who have completed a specific number of years of schooling with an assumption that all students were exposed to similar opportunities for learning. This study will utilize KCPE and KCSE examinations results. The KCPE and KCSE examinations which are national examinations administered in the current system ( 8.4.4 system) of education in Kenya.
Parents in Kenya today are very cautious in choosing the secondary school where their children will go through. When the KCPE results are out and the child has excelled, the parents would wish their children to join a secondary school where they are guaranteed their children‟s KCSE excellent performance. A recent case that hit the media headlines was a case whereby parents give bribes to some senior education officers in the ministry to get back door placements of Form 1 students to national schools. The parents, teachers and administration of schools will also want information that will enable them put measures in place that will ensure good academic performance.
The problem so stated is very significant and worth solving. Through this descriptive and qualitative research, the researcher seeks to find the relationship between a student‟s KCPE score and the KCSE grade attained at the end of the Four(4) years course case study of secondary schools in Kajiado North Sub-County. | en_US |
