Appendix 3
The School Certificate results
The following graph (Fig.1) shows the average School Certificate
grades in English Language and Literature of two schools in Kenya
- Kakamega and Maseno. These were chosen as being well-established
secondary schools with a similar kind of staff. However Maseno,
in the earlier part of the period was classified as a National
School and recruited from all parts of Kenya, whereas Kakamega
recruited mainly from Western and Nyanza provinces.
fig.1
The method of obtaining the figures was to count the numbers
of different grade passes and failures in each year by inspecting
the microfilm records of School Certificate results held in the
Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate's archive.
The data represented by the above graph were obtained by taking
the numbers of students obtaining the grade, multiplying by the
grade and summing the figure produced and then dividing by the
total number of students. A higher number represents more students
with worse grades.
The first group which had done the English Block activities was
the group which was in Form two in 1967. These had between two
and three terms of the activities. They took the School Certificate
exam in 1969. Their language pass rate was slightly worse than
the previous year's but almost the same as the 1967 examinees.
The next group was the one which started with the block activities
in Form one in 1967 and then had two full years of the block
and took the School Certificate in 1970. Their language and literature
pass rates are a little better than the previous two years, (however
35 did not take the literature exam). The next group had had
the block in its full form for one year and possibly a modified
version for a further year. Their pass rate for both language
and literature were again a little better. The group which took
the School Certificate in 1972 have a slightly worse pass rate.
They may have had a modified version of block work for some of
the time but details of this are not known at present.
The above graph seems to show that there may have been a small
improvement in pass rates, but in comparison with Maseno (where
the students probably followed a conventional course) the variations
can be seen as within the normal range of change.
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