“Seen through a tabula rasa lens, the 2024 KCSE results surprise with a historic female majority and a clear downturn in poor grades—a strong testament to Kenya’s evolving education landscape,” remarked the Founder of Impact Borderless Digital (IBD) as he unveiled plans for the Inaugural IBD Youth Summit to be held this year to take stock of the milestones achieved in youth mentorship and lessons for improvement.

Historic Milestone as Kenyan Girls Outnumber Boys in KCSE Enrolment

These 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results mark a historic milestone: for the first time since KCSE began in 1989, more girls than boys sat the national examinations. This follows closely on the 2023 analysis, which posted gender enrolment parity for the first time. If the enrolment trend continues, the projection this analysis series (IBDSeries) made in 2023—that the number of KCSE candidates would exceed one million by 2025—remains well on track. Furthermore, for the second year running with gender parity in enrolment, more boys than girls scored the worst grades of D- and E.

As the Impact Borderless Digital (IBD) youth mentorship programme celebrates its fifth year in youth mentorship, complete with youth-centred research feats that have been championing quality education with equity in transition rates to ensure girls can progressively attain parity in representation in STEM disciplines and careers, it is now timely to predict that girls are on track to increasing their share in the careers that have traditionally been the province of dominance for boys. This is despite the persistence of the old trend in 2024, with boys outperforming girls in STEM subjects.

Important Note: The figures used in the #IBDSeries exclude candidates whose results get withheld or cancelled, hence over 3,600 candidates in 2024 alone. Therefore, all the statistical references to performance share and aggregate totals relate only to the graded candidates.

Overall Enrolment and Gender Distribution

• Total Candidates in 2024 (graded, cancelled or withheld results excluded): 958,926
• Male Candidates: 478,913
• Female Candidates: 480,013

The female enrolment has overtaken that of the male candidates, though by a narrow margin. This new gender balance achievement must be protected and promoted through systematic policy interventions (elaborated later). Since 2015, candidate numbers have continued to rise steadily, a trend attributed to the push for 100% primary-to-secondary transition as well as improved retention rates, particularly for girls, in addition to the population growth typical of a young country.

Salient Points

Strong performance at the upper grades. Though still a small fraction, the A and A– categories together (9,436 candidates) are slightly higher in absolute numbers than in 2023 (8,470).

Improving ‘middle-tier’ grades (C+ to B–). In summary, 25.69% of the graded candidates attained C+ and above, the highest share since 2016 following the post-2015 reforms that tightened quality control measures against exam irregularities and leakages.

Reduction at the Tail-end

The combined share of D+ to E in 2024 stood at just over 50%, a drop compared to 52–55% in the 2021–2023 period and even more than 60% earlier, with an alarming 72% in 2017. The low 40% share of D+ to E grades in 2015 has never been matched ever since, but any Kenyan knows well that the years before 2016 were rife with cases of blatant exam cheating and alleged massaging of results. The sanity that has prevailed after 2015 has rightly been attributed to the spectacular work and lasting legacy of Dr. Fred Okeng’o Matiang’i and the late Prof. George Magoha. Nolens volens, the exam-cheating cartels had to bow out.

The 2024 results indicate a marginal improvement in reducing the poorest performance cluster, combating what the #IBDSeries once metaphorically referred to as a long, wagging tail drowning in a pool of Ds and Es.

Summary of KCSE Trends Since 2015

Rising enrolment. Total KCSE enrolment has climbed steadily since 2015. With the 2024 enrolment figure of 962,512 (including withheld/cancelled results), a million-plus candidature in 2025 is highly likely.

Gender parity and subsequent overtake. The female share of candidates was nearing parity by 2023 and has surpassed the male share in 2024. This laudable paradigmatic shift cannot be divorced from government and community-level efforts to retain more girls in school and close the early marriage and teenage pregnancy gap, among other structural interventions.

Better grade distribution. The proportion of candidates scoring a C+ and above (the typical cut-off for direct entry into public universities) has grown incrementally. Conversely, the bottom cluster (D+ to E) has shown a gradual decline since 2021, indicating improvements in overall learning outcomes.

Policy Recommendations

Strengthen Gender-Focused Initiatives

With more girls now sitting the exam than boys, resources must be strategically allocated to sustain this momentum—particularly in STEM subjects, mentorship, and psychosocial support. In support, research in Kenya completed in 2021 as part of an education project under the Graduate and Research Academy (GraFA) of TU Bergakademie Freiberg (Germany) made a compelling case for cultural transformation and a shift in the socialisation and financial support models for STEM subjects. “Girls deserve an allocation of at least US$ 340 more per capita per year than boys if parity in access to STEM education and quality learning outcomes are to be achieved in Kenya.” (Read more from the references given at the end).

Improve Quality in the ‘Middle Band’

A large share of the cohort’s hovers between D+ and E grades, which should be pulled upward with enhanced teacher training, remedial programmes, and targeted guidance and counselling. By cutting down on #Sardanapalian luxury, county governments and the national government can afford to spare more resources towards meeting this end goal. This finding also adds weight to the urgency of the initiative by Kenya’s Ministry in charge of Youth Affairs to address the training needs of the youth with low formal education, notably the recently advertised NYOTA Project.

Address Regional Disparities

Although aggregate enrolment is rising, rural and arid/semi-arid regions continue to face infrastructural and resource challenges. Focused policies on expanding teacher deployment, digital learning materials, and school meals can help reduce this spatial disparity.

Foster Technical and Vocational Education and Training Pathways

Even with a smaller proportion getting A to B+, there is a large number of D and E grades. Expanding Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) opportunities will accommodate the broader talent pool, especially in the lower-tier grades.

Review Grading and Curriculum Implementation

The reformed curriculum environment and the ongoing Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) transitions should be anchored in robust evaluation frameworks, ensuring fairness and transparency. Potential anomalies in the tail-end performance require continuous pedagogical re-engineering and policy reviews.

Conclusion

The 2024 KCSE results confirm major trends: rising total enrolment and an unprecedented surge in female candidature and a surge in the number and share of candidates qualifying to join public universities directly. The results also point to a slight improvement in the performance distribution at the lower grades (D+ to E), continuing a slow but steady positive shift since 2021. With KCSE enrolment likely to cross the one-million mark in 2025, safeguarding the gains in gender inclusion remains essential, and so does the urgent need for increased budget allocation to sponsor the rising number of qualified university students.

Therefore, the government must urgently take steps to overcome the hurdles facing the new public university funding model, through active stakeholder engagement and executing the necessary reforms to ensure justice for the many needy and well-deserving students.

Ensuring quality across the board—through teacher capacity building, remedial interventions, and inclusive policies—will help Kenya absorb the growing secondary school population and nurture a competitive, skilled workforce with adaptive resilience for the Future of Work.

By Dr Nashon Adero

IBD Series