A troubling situation in one well-known secondary school in Tharaka Nithi county has exposed a deeper national problem: the quiet, calculated manipulation of subject choices in the pursuit of higher exam rankings.

Students in this school are forced to make an impossible decision: to drop either biology or physics, both foundational sciences globally, while chemistry and Christian Religious Education (CRE) are imposed as compulsory subjects. The goal is not to nurture well-rounded learners; it is to protect the school’s mean grade.

This practice has nothing to do with Ministry of Education policy and is not aligned with the Kenya Secondary Education Curriculum. It is purely a school-level strategy, designed to sidestep subjects where students tend to perform poorly nationwide.

By limiting science candidates, schools artificially inflate their average marks, making themselves appear competitive even if it means sacrificing a child’s future career path in engineering, health sciences, aviation, research or innovation.

What makes this even more perplexing is the insistence on the compulsory nature of CRE, a subject whose role, in most Kenyan schools, has largely been reduced to memorising Bible stories and reproducing them word-for-word in exams.

CRE, as structured today, seldom teaches children how to interpret religion, understand spirituality or grapple with ethical dilemmas. It does not explore African indigenous belief systems or cultural foundations. Rather, it functions as a predictable exam subject, whose content is easier to memorise and easier to pass. But schools are not churches, and a nation cannot build its workforce, economy or global competitiveness on a syllabus that leans heavily on rote learning.

The irony is that authentic spiritual development, the kind that shapes character, conscience and community, is already well supported by churches, fellowships, youth groups and family traditions. Faith formation belongs to home and community, where it can be nurtured with sincerity.

What happens in schools, however, is something different: a watered-down form of religiosity that rewards memorisation over understanding, conformity over curiosity.

And in a society where political culture often mirrors these same tendencies — symbolic gestures instead of substance, loyalty over accountability — this approach quietly reinforces habits that discourage questioning and critical thought.

When a school elevates CRE above physics, it is not promoting faith, it is promoting intellectual stagnation. When it sidelines biology but enforces scripture recall, it is not shaping moral citizens, it is narrowing the minds of future professionals. And when administrators prioritise their ranking over a child’s educational breadth, they are not protecting students, they are protecting themselves.

The tragedy is that many parents do not realise this is happening. They see good grades and assume the school is doing well. But parents must remember: a high mean score does not always mean high learning. A school may appear successful even as it quietly shutters opportunities for its students. Forcing children away from the sciences means locking them out of entire career pathways before they even get a chance to dream. It means ensuring that only a select few can aspire to be doctors, engineers, scientists or innovators, while others are ushered into ‘easier’ streams for the sake of numbers on a report card.

Parents must begin to ask the hard questions: Why can my child not take physics? Why is biology being discouraged? Why is CRE compulsory in a school, when spiritual guidance naturally belongs to the home, church and community? Why are life-shaping decisions being made based on the school’s image rather than the student’s future?

Kenya cannot speak of Vision 2030, digital transformation or scientific advancement while schools are quietly choking off science education. We cannot dream of becoming globally competitive when we are teaching our children that memorisation is more valuable than experimentation. A nation grows through curiosity, innovation and the confidence to question, not through compulsory Bible recitation or school rankings.

The situation in Tharaka Nithi is not an isolated incident. It is a warning of a larger systemic failure. And unless parents step forward, ask questions and demand transparency, children will continue to be quietly diverted into subjects that serve the school’s reputation rather than their own future.

Education is meant to open doors, not to close them. Yet today, too many Kenyan children are being denied opportunities in the name of grades. It is time to confront this truth and insist that our schools return to their real mission: shaping thinkers, not statistics.