University lecturers now encounter students who scored straight As but struggle to write
coherent academic essays, to solve basic algebraic problems, or to reason scientifically.
PROF MAURICE OKOTH
Today, university lecture halls tell a troubling story. Failure rates in semester examinations
are rising steadily. Large numbers of first-year students are unable to cope with the
academic demands of programmes they qualified for on paper. Prestigious courses such as
engineering, medicine, pharmacy and actuarial science are recording unprecedented
attrition. Students abandon them, not after years of struggle, but within the first semesters,
claiming they “do not like” the programmes they were admitted into. Behind this polite
language lies a harsher truth: many simply do not have the foundational competencies that
their grades promised.
For decades, KCSE was the gold standard of merit-based selection. It was imperfect, but
broadly credible. A grade in mathematics or chemistry was a reliable predictor of readiness
for engineering or medicine. That compact between schools, university, and society has
been progressively broken. In its place has emerged a culture where passing, not learning,
is the primary objective; where grades are negotiated, purchased, inflated, or politically
protected; where integrity is sacrificed at the altar of ranking and prestige.
University lecturers now encounter students who scored straight As but struggle to write
coherent academic essays, to solve basic algebraic problems, or to reason scientifically.
Remedial classes, once exceptional, have become routine. Diagnostic tests at the
beginning of programmes reveal shocking gaps in literacy, numeracy, and analytical
thinking. In some faculties, the first semester functions less as university education and
more as emergency academic rehabilitation.
The most visible manifestation of this crisis is in failure rates. Departments that once
recorded single-digit failure percentages now see double and even triple figures. Core units
in calculus, anatomy, physics, and organic chemistry have become graveyards of broken
expectations. Examination boards are inundated with appeals, supplementary requests, and
special consideration cases. The academic pipeline is leaking badly.
When students abandon engineering and medicine, they rarely say, “I am academically
overwhelmed.” They say, “This is not what I expected,” or “I have discovered my passion
lies elsewhere.” Universities politely record these as changes of interest. But lecturers know
better. They know that many of these students are fleeing from academic demands that
their secondary school grades falsely assured them they could meet.
This attrition has deeper institutional consequences. Engineering schools plan their staffing,
laboratories, and budgets based on projected cohorts. Medical schools invest heavily in
clinical placements and faculty numbers. When half a class disappears by the second year,
not by choice but by incapacity, resources are wasted and planning collapses.
University senates across the country are under growing pressure to “make students pass.”
Failure, once understood as part of rigorous academic selection, is increasingly framed as
an institutional failure rather than a student outcome. Compassion has replaced standards.
Examination boards debate the raising of marks, not on academic grounds but on
humanitarian ones. Borderline students are pushed through to avoid “wasting years,”
discouraging youth or “hurting the institution’s image.” Marks are adjusted not because
learning has occurred, but because failure has become politically and socially inconvenient.
This is a dangerous moment for higher education. When senates begin to rescue students
through compassion rather than competence, the university ceases to be a gatekeeper of
professional standards and becomes a social welfare institution. A doctor who passed

anatomy on humanitarian grounds is not a humanitarian success; they are a public risk. An
engineer who survived calculus through mark compensation is not a rescued youth; they
are a future structural hazard.
Universities are trapped in a dilemma of the right way to think. They must choose between
protecting standards and protecting students whose grades misled them into programmes
they were never prepared for. Fail them in large numbers and face public outcry, political
intervention, and reputational damage. Pass them through and compromise the integrity of
degrees that society depends on.
The roots of this crisis lie firmly in our secondary school assessment culture. Over time,
KCSE has shifted from being an evaluation of learning to a high-stakes tournament of
survival. Schools are ranked, teachers are rewarded, principals are transferred, and
politicians campaign on mean scores. Parents equate grades with social mobility, not with
competence. In this environment, integrity becomes a luxury. Leakages, impersonation,
collusion and grade manipulation did not arise in a vacuum. They arose in a system that
made honest failure more dangerous than dishonest success.
Worse still, enforcement has been inconsistent. While some students and schools are
punished, others are protected by power, money, or politics. This selective justice has
taught a generation a cynical lesson: that cheating is risky only if you are weak, and that
integrity is admirable only if you can afford it.
Quality assurance officers struggle to contain the damage. Bridging programmes multiply.
Foundation courses expand. Study skills workshops become compulsory. Plagiarism
detection software flags thousands of cases. Yet these are symptoms, not cures. They
address the consequences, not the cause.
Employers, too, are beginning to notice. Complaints about graduate preparedness are
growing. Interns present shocking gaps between paper qualifications and actual
professional skill. International partners quietly question the reliability of transcripts. The
Kenyan degree, once regionally respected, risks slow but steady devaluation.
This is not merely an academic problem. It is a national development crisis. Universities
produce the engineers who build our roads, the doctors who treat our children, the teachers
who educate our future, and the administrators who govern our institutions. When the
quality of these graduates is compromised, the integrity of our infrastructure, the safety of
our health, the future of our children, and the stability of state become fragile.
What, then, must be done? Ways forward are many. First, we must restore credibility to
national examinations. Examination integrity cannot be episodic; it must be systemic.
Leakages must become rare, not routine. Punishments must be consistent, not selective.
The message must be unambiguous: cheating is not a strategy, it is a dead end.
Second, we must dethrone grades as the sole currency of merit. Universities should
increasingly use diagnostic testing, interviews, portfolios, and subject-specific entrance
assessments, especially for high-risk programmes like medicine or engineering. Admission
should be based not only on what students scored, but on what they can demonstrably do.
Third, universities must recover the courage to fail students honestly. Compassion is not
incompatible with standards, but it must not replace them. Remedial support should be
strengthened, but passing without competence is a betrayal of both students and society.
Finally, we must rebuild a culture of learning, not merely of passing. This requires parents,
teachers, politicians, and media to stop worshiping mean scores and start valuing genuine
competence.
The crisis in universities today did not begin in university. It began in classrooms where
shortcuts were tolerated, in offices where grades were fixed, and in a society that rewarded
results without asking how they were achieved.

The bill has arrived. Failure rates are rising. Prestigious programmes are emptying. Senates
are negotiating standards away. Degrees are losing weight.
If we do not repair the integrity of our examinations now, tomorrow’s universities will not
merely struggle to teach; they will struggle to justify their existence.
And a nation that cannot trust its degrees cannot trust its future.
· The writer is a Professor of physical chemistry at the University of Eldoret, a higher
education expert, and a quality assurance consultant; Email: okothmdo@uoeid.ac.ke