Battle of the sexes: How girls and boys compared in KCPE 2018

The boys continue to dominate the charts in numbers but the girls, it shows, are catching up fast.

A total of 1,052,364 candidates sat for the 2018 KCPE examinations; of these 527,294 (50.1%) were boys, 525,070 (49.9%) were girls- a difference of 2224.

“An analysis of the gender trend in candidates this year indicates that the number of girls has consistently been increasing,” said Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed, adding that 23 out of the 47 counties registered more female candidates.

On the battlefront, the two genders were pretty much evenly matched right from the top.

This year saw a tie at the top candidates; Rawlings Odhiambo from Kakamega Hill School and Olive Mwea from Riara School, Nairobi who both scored 453 out of the possible 500 marks.

CS Amina also announced that the female candidates performed better than the boys in English, Swahili and the Kenyan Sign Language exams.

The male candidates on the other hand performed better in Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Religious studies.

Female candidates performed better than their male counterparts in English, Kiswahili and Kenyan Sign Language; Male candidates better in Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Religious Studies.

Last year, the ratio of boys to girls who sat KCPE examination was almost at par, with 498,775 (50.19 percent) being boys while 494,943 (48.1percent) were girls. 27 counties registered more girls than boys.

In 2016, out of the 942,021 KCPE candidates, 49.7 percent were girls and 50.3 percent boys.

CS Amina noted that there was a slight improvement in this year’s KCPE performance compared to last year.

Of the over one million candidates, 12,273 scored over 400 marks while 228,414 attained between 301 and 400 marks.

On the other hand 574,927 pupils attained between 201 and 300 marks while 234,573 candidates had between 101 and 200 marks.

A total of 2,177 pupils had 100 marks and below.

Amina lauded the increase in number of special needs candidates to 2,495 saying the highest of them garnered a remarkable 446 marks. She further reassured the president’s word that all candidates will be placed in high schools regardless of their grade.