E Students in KCSE get a rare chance to become KWS rangers

It is said that for one to succeed in life,one has to score a good grade in school like an A or a B. This has led many students to think that if they fail to get a good grade their deemed to fail in life. Some have even gone as far as commiting suicide or thinking of doing so.

This can be partly blamed by the education sector in the country that only favours pupils or students who are book smart and those who are not are left out. It is important to understand that not everyone is born the same,each one of us has an inborn talent that can be utilised for the good of the naton. 

This has led to launch of several training vocational institutions both government and private spoensored to cater for students who are talented outside the classroom. One such move is the absorption of students with the E grade to the Kenya Wildlife Service. Candidates who scored an E in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams have got a chance to be recruited into the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) as rangers.

Hundreds of youths across the eight sub-counties of Nyeri County who had turned up for the recruitment were forced to go back to their homes after they were told they could not qualify to join the service due to their high grades. A majority of those who turned up and who were not allowed to participate in the recruitment had scored a grade of above C- in their KCSE exams.

According to the KWS Law Enforcement Academy Commandant Dickson Lesimirdana, the service is giving an opportunity to young people who never had a chance to score higher grades in their national examination.

“For this recruitment even those who scored the lowest KCSE grade of E will get the opportunity as long they qualify in other requirements such as height and physical fitness,” he said.

This year, the KWS requires a maximum grade of D+ (plus) and a minimum of E in the national exam.

Mr Lesimirdana said the decision to lower the cut-off grades for those willing to join the service was to give a chance to those who may never get an opportunity to further their studies because of low grades in their national exams.

“We have realised that there is a lot of unemployment among the youths, especially those who scored D+ and below as those who get C- and above have been showing up for the recruitments in the previous years and locking out those who never performed well,” he said.

He said since poaching has become a major problem especially in forests near the main national parks, the service is looking for people who will be trained and serve the country with due diligence. He said there had been a problem of rangers with good grades joining the service only to leave shortly afterwards when they discover that the work they are required to do is more demanding than they expected.

This situation, he said, leaves the service without enough rangers to guard parks and fight poachers. The service is seeking to recruit more than 600 rangers across the country with an average of 13 being recruited in each of the 47 counties. In counties where poaching is a major problem, the KWS will recruit up to 15 rangers.

In Nyeri County, two women and 12 men aged between 18 and 25 years were picked for the job.

This indeed is a new lease of life for those who thought that they were deemed for failure after failing in their national exams. The world is gradually becoming a place of equal chances to everyone hence ensuring everyone has an equal fighting chance.

Reference : www.nation.co.ke