Kitui high school results: What would it take to improve the KCSE results of Kitui High Schools?

I posed the question on what it would take to improve the Kitui high schools results to three experienced educationists.

One of the educationist was of the view that we need to figure out a way of motivating the students in the various Kitui high schools, if at all we are to get good results from them. I could see where he was coming from. I mean, if you encounter the kids who score grades like D plain, D- minus and E in KCSE Kitui, you soon realize that the kids are not stupid. It is just that they lack the motivation to study. So you find a kid with a brain that is good enough to memorize all players in Chelsea or Man U, yet the same kid can’t memorize the elements in the periodic table! What do you conclude – that the kid has a good brain, but lacks motivation to apply it in educational pursuits. So that is what needs to be sorted.

The second educationist was of the view that we need to make huge investments in improving the infrastructure in the various Kitui high schools, if we are to get better results. The kids should be studying in world-class classrooms, having access to world-class laboratories, having access to newspapers, the Internet and other media (for exposure), having access to world class libraries and so on, if at all they are to produce excellent results. Most of the rural schools in Kitui lack even the most basic of such amenities.

The third educationist opined that what needs to be changed is the education system, that the kids in the various high schools in Kitui county do their best, but the system fails them. So according to this educationist, the problem that results in majority of the students getting D plains, D minuses and Es is simply that the KCSE exam is too hard for the average mind. So according to him, it is a 'system' thing…