Every year when KCSE results are released, the nation collectively holds its breath. Social media fills with photos of smiling students, proud parents, and school gates draped in banners announcing national pride. When straight As rise from just 141 in 2016 to the thousands today, the conclusion seems obvious: our children are getting smarter, and that, many argue, is enough evidence that our education system is working.
But pause for a moment.
Are we truly witnessing progress, or are we applauding numbers while ignoring the contradictions beneath them?
A decade ago, as I earlier pointed out, straight As were rare. Today, they number in the thousands. On paper, this appears to be a remarkable achievement. Yet Kenya is simultaneously grappling with stubborn youth unemployment, underemployment, and a growing sense of disillusionment among graduates. If intelligence is increasing, why are opportunities shrinking?
This is not a rejection of academic excellence. Hard work deserves recognition. Students who excel should be celebrated. But when grades become the end goal rather than a starting point, we risk mistaking performance for preparedness.
For decades, the 8-4-4 system conditioned society to believe that exams were the ultimate measure of intelligence and success. Certificates became passports to dignity. Parents invested everything in grades because grades promised jobs. That promise, however, has steadily weakened.
Today’s economy does not reward memorisation as generously as it once did. It rewards skills, adaptability, creativity, and problem-solving. Yet our national excitement still centres on who scored what, not on what those scores enable young people to do once the celebrations fade.
The contradiction is painful: we are producing academically strong students in an economy that cannot absorb them meaningfully. Many high performers still struggle to find work. Others accept jobs far below their training. At the same time, employers complain of skills gaps, and young people complain of closed doors.
Kenya is not short of intelligence. It is short of alignment.
To its credit, the country has begun to acknowledge this reality. The gradual transition away from the 8-4-4 system toward a competency-based, skills-focused approach reflects an understanding that education must evolve. This shift recognises that learning should prepare students not just to pass exams, but to navigate real life, real work, and real challenges.
But reform alone is not enough if our mindset does not change with it.
Countries such as Finland and Singapore offer useful contrasts. Finland places minimal emphasis on high-stakes national examinations, focusing instead on teacher quality, critical thinking, and learner wellbeing. Singapore, while rigorous, aligns education tightly with economic planning, technical training, and continuous skills upgrading. In both cases, success is measured not by exam spectacle, but by long-term outcomes: productivity, innovation, and social mobility.
As education reformer Sir Ken Robinson once observed, “Education is meant to take us into the future, not repeat the past.” When grades become the final destination rather than a bridge to capability, that future narrows.
If we continue to glorify grades while neglecting outcomes, we risk reproducing the same cycle under a new curriculum. A skills-based system must genuinely value technical ability, creativity, entrepreneurship, and applied knowledge, not treat them as secondary to academic prestige.
Other high-performing societies understand that excellence is not announced in a single results season. It is revealed over time, through contribution, adaptability, and problem-solving. As Albert Einstein famously noted, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.”
So perhaps the real question is not whether our children are smarter.
Perhaps it is whether our system knows what to do with that intelligence.
We should absolutely celebrate achievement. But celebration without reflection becomes ritual. And ritual, without reform, becomes distraction.
If education does not reliably lead to opportunity, dignity, and economic participation, then grades lose their meaning beyond the classroom. Intelligence remains abundant, but futures remain uncertain.
Until then, the applause may continue, but the contradiction will remain.
By Amos Murumba
