Slightly less than half of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidates who sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination this attained at least 250 out of 500 marks.
Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi, while officially releasing the results on Monday morning, said the performance was relatively the same as last year.
He said 436.814 students got more that 251 marks, representing 49.61 per cent of those who sat for the exam, compared to 49.71 per cent last year.
More than 880,000 candidates sat for the exam in 24,278 centres across the country this year, an increase from 2013, when 839,000 candidates sat for the exam in 23,819 centres.
The candidates can access the results as soon as they are released by sending their index numbers through SMS to 22252.
They can also download their results by logging onto the examination council’s website, www.knec.ac.ke, and keying in their index numbers.
Last month, the Education Ministry abolished the ranking of schools and candidates to reduce cut-throat competition and cheating in national examinations.
The new policy was aimed at ending unethical practices by teachers in the rush for top positions.
While releasing the results on Monday, Prof Kaimenyi defended the decision not to release any orders of performance ranking, saying there were more demerits of performance ranking that were benefits.
The Cabinet Secretary urged the media to respect the decision of the ministry, asking them not to do any ranking in a “kienyeji” way.
He said using mean score alone did not accurately reflect the performance of a school as there are were other factors that would have to be considered, including the facilities.