we need to think of the education system as a factory! processing people, adding value!

Our education system is flawed and seriously needs an overhaul. I fail to see how the worth of a student's 8 years effort can be pegged on a single week of exams, a 4 year effort on a month etc

Everyone has talents, strengths, interests etc and it is these that an education system should nature.

That said, D students are also people, who have a right to a higher education, if they should so wish.

It's true, with only 100k, you can bribe the academic registrar of this institutions to admit your son who got an E or a D in KCSE.

To make sure he graduates, regardless of whether he passed his exams/project all you need is Ksh 100k as well.

Fortunately, life has a way of dealing with such ills in the society.

Moreover,we have good institutions in Kenya like strathmore where if you take your son/daughter chances of him/her turning out good are superb.

However,you need to save save and have enough money to pay the high college fees.

Like approximately 2.5m from 1st year - 4th year.

So if lets say you have 3 kids.. put aside 7.5 million for their college education.

Interesting topic and diverse views! The issue here is admitting weak students to the universities via shortcuts and that is wrong as per our 'wrong' system. Other factors constant, the instructor should be more knowledgeable than the student and that is a fact. That is why some lecturers, high school teachers will have issues with very brilliant students who challenge them. When issuing instructions, you must have a 'broader view' of the instruction. In my MCSE class, an instructor who was a non-IT graduate pissed me off on day 1 when he said once you partition a hard disk to drives of specific sizes, you cannot change them until your reformat the Hard disk. But this was wrong, and several other students knew it was a lie. This is a case of an uninformed teacher misleading students, who if they don't research on their own, will go to the field with wrong info.
On the issue of As and Ds, there is a difference. And that is why specific courses ask for strong grades in specific subjects. A guy who got a D in Maths/Physics has nil to do in a computational complexity/architecture class. He may have his strong areas and that is why he should go there.
Even in High schools where exams are said to be 'taught', you have to be bright, to be able to replicate the leakage you have been in the exam. People who get Ds should go to their strong areas and academics is not one of them.

I am unhappy with cheating in universities. It is sad to see students carrying Mwakenyas to exam halls, discussing answers, swapping answer sheets and using mobile phones to Google for answers to questions on material already taught during coursework.

I heard of a case where a student had written 2 answer sheets; one for himself in blue ink; and another for his girlfriend in black ink. Had even signed on the exam list for both of them. Apparently the girlfriend was away from town. And these were Masters students.

Another where a very Senior High School principal had paid a university student to be attending classes and sitting his exams.

More than 50% of theses written by Masters students are written for them by Writing Agencies and by other students. 75% of research 'collected' is cooked. Most masters and PhD students cannot adequately defend a thesis topic in-front of a group of supervisors and their peers.

I am also unhappy about lecturers sleeping with students for grades. Average beautiful 'D grade' girls getting As in bed. And the not so beautiful Bs.