The Exam Economy of Kenya

In Kenya, at every major transition point, whether it's primary school, secondary school, or university, students are filtered through high-stakes national examinations that determine who advances and who is left behind. While these exams are intended to ensure fairness and merit, they have instead become a mechanism through which inequality is reproduced.

This system has produced what many scholars and educators describe as an “exam economy,” in which enormous social, financial, and emotional resources are concentrated around test performance. Kenya has far fewer elite secondary schools and public university places than there are qualified applicants. The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE), until its recent phaseout, determined which students could attend prestigious national schools, while the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) continues to gatekeep entry into university and professional careers. A single score can shape a student’s entire life trajectory.

This high-stakes environment has created a massive parallel market around exams. Private tutoring, holiday “cram schools,” boarding exam academies, and test-prep materials are now standard for middle and upper class families. The cost of this preparation is substantial. Households that can afford tutoring are far better positioned to compete. Meanwhile, rural and low-income students often attend overcrowded schools with limited materials and undertrained teachers, making it far harder to achieve the scores needed to advance compare to rich families to have 1 on 1 tutoring.

The exam economy results in a system in which wealth are far more important than hard-work or ability. For example, urban schools consistently outperform rural ones in average exam scores, and students from wealthier families dominate top exam rankings and elite school admissions. The exam system, rather than correcting for inequality, amplifies it by rewarding those who already have educational advantages.

The pressure created by this structure also reshapes what learning means. Teaching becomes narrowly focused on test performance rather than true understanding, and subjects that are not directly examined receive less attention. For those who fail the exams, the consequences are not only academic but psychological, as failure is interpreted as personal inadequacy rather than structural exclusion.

The exam economy in Kenya reflects how opportunity is distributed, how resources are allocated, and how merit is defined. Exams themselves are not the enemy. They can be useful tools for assessment. But when they cease to be helpful when it becomes the sole gateway to mobility in a deeply unequal society.