Summative Exams: An Inescapable Reality in Education
In Kenya’s education landscape, summative assessments – end-of-term tests and high-stakes national exams – remain the dominant yardstick for success. Society continues to prioritize performance in national exams like the KCPE and KCSE, viewing pass rates and scores as the ultimate measure of school quality and student ability. School leaders are under intense pressure to deliver top results, as exam outcomes determine which students advance to prestigious schools and shape their educational trajectory. Even as curricula evolve, this exam-centric culture persists. Recent reforms (such as the Competency-Based Curriculum, CBC) aim to emphasize continuous assessment and holistic skills, but the old habits of “teaching to the test” die hard. Teachers are accustomed to preparing students for high-stakes exams, and that instinct is unlikely to disappear overnight. In fact, Kenya’s system now blends new and old: teachers administer continuous assessments from Grades 4–12, yet summative exams at key transition grades (6, 9, 12) are still in place, carrying significant weight. The reality is clear – for now, summative exams remain a central focus for schools, parents, and policymakers. Rather than ignore this fact, forward-thinking educators are asking: how can we leverage exam data to improve teaching and learning year-round?
From Exam Results to Actionable Insights: A New Approach
Traditionally, summative and formative assessment have been seen as opposites – final exams versus ongoing quizzes – but in truth they need not be mutually exclusive. An end-of-term or national exam doesn’t have to be a dead-end “autopsy” of learning; it can become a starting point for improvement. Education experts note that while teachers often rely on summative assessments, it’s formative assessment that truly improves instruction by identifying curriculum gaps and boosting student performance. In other words, the rich data from a summative exam can feed into the formative process. If a teacher gives a test on Monday and then reviews the results to adjust Wednesday’s lessons, that test is no longer purely summative – it’s being used formatively. Exam scores and item analyses can reveal exactly where students struggled, whether it’s a particular math skill or a comprehension strategy. Instead of resisting the exam-heavy reality, progressive schools are working backwards from summative results: treating exam data as a diagnostic tool to inform what comes next in the classroom. Did most of the class miss a certain question? That’s a flag to re-teach that concept or try a new instructional approach. Summative data, when rapidly analyzed and returned to teachers, becomes actionable insight. This approach acknowledges the power of summative assessments as a tool – not just for accountability or grades, but for learning. By using exam results to drive instructional adjustments, schools can satisfy the demands of accountability while also enhancing day-to-day teaching. Summative and formative approaches, far from being enemies, can be allies in improving student outcomes.
Kurasa: Harnessing Summative Data for Formative Gains
Enter Kurasa, a forward-looking EdTech platform that is embracing this philosophy at the heart of Kenyan education. Rather than fighting against the summative-focused status quo, Kurasa works with it – turning exam results into a powerful tool for improvement. The platform, designed with Kenya’s curriculum in mind, enables teachers to upload or conduct both formative and summative assessments online, then instantly crunches the numbers to produce meaningful analysis. After an end-of-term test or a standardized exam, Kurasa can generate a comprehensive data report within moments. These reports break down performance by subject, topic, or competency and highlight exactly which areas students found most challenging. In practical terms, Kurasa is doing the heavy lifting of “exam post-mortems” for teachers: it pinpoints learning gaps that the summative assessment exposed, without the teacher having to manually sift through piles of papers. Armed with these insights, teachers can immediately see, for example, that “Topic C was poorly understood by most of my class” and then plan targeted remediation. Crucially, Kurasa doesn’t stop at analysis – it connects to action. The platform’s lesson-planning module is integrated with the assessment data, so it can feed these insights directly into teachers’ planning. If a class performed below expectations on a reading comprehension skill, Kurasa might suggest relevant follow-up activities or flag that skill for emphasis in upcoming lesson plans. By aligning its recommendations with the national curriculum standards, the platform ensures that teachers address gaps while still covering required content. In essence, Kurasa enables a form of data-driven lesson design: starting from summative results and tracing backwards to adjust what and how to teach next. Teachers who have used the system report that this approach is transformative. They no longer have to guess where the weak points are – the data tells them – and they can respond immediately. Kurasa’s user-friendly dashboard presents these analytics in digestible charts and graphs, making it easy for even a busy teacher to glean insights at a glance. Real-time assessment feedback means that by the time one exam is over, preparation for improvement is already underway. This is a stark departure from the old pattern of waiting until the next term (or the next year) to address shortcomings. By connecting summative outcomes to formative planning, Kurasa helps ensure that each exam’s lessons inform tomorrow’s teaching.
- How Kurasa’s “Work-Backwards” Process Operates:
- Data Collection: Teachers administer exams or input past exam results into Kurasa (these can be school end-of-term tests or mock KCPE/KCSE questions).
- Automated Analysis: Within moments, Kurasa analyzes the results, providing a breakdown of performance by question, topic, and skill. Teachers receive visual reports showing patterns – for instance, which questions most students missed, and which topics had the lowest scores.
- Identify Learning Gaps: The system flags learning gaps clearly. If a majority of students stumbled on, say, fractions or a grammar concept, Kurasa highlights this. It essentially shines a light on the “gaps” in the curriculum coverage or understandingrevealed by the summative assessment.
- Insights to Lesson Plans: Kurasa then links these gaps to instructional content. Teachers are prompted with recommendations – for example, to revisit a concept, try an alternative teaching strategy, or provide extra practice materials for that area. Because Kurasa’s lesson planning tool is built in, teachers can update their plans on the spot, scheduling a review session or inserting a remedial lesson targeting the weak area. The platform ensures these adjustments are aligned with CBC competencies and standards for the grade level.
- Formative Follow-Up: To make sure the gaps are truly closed, Kurasa enables teachers to create quick formative assessments (quizzes, polls, exit tickets) targeting the troubled areas. These can be given in the next class or week, allowing teachers to check if students have improved after the intervention. The results of these mini-assessments are again captured by the platform, creating a continuous feedback loop. Over time, this cycle – exam, analysis, targeted teaching, and follow-up – fosters a much stronger grasp of material, before the next big exam comes around.
By using this cycle, Kurasa turns summative exams from a final judgment into a formative guidepost. The platform effectively asks, “What can we learn from this exam?” and then makes sure that both teacher and student learn those lessons. It’s a holistic approach: the summative assessment still fulfills its role of evaluating learning at a point in time, but its data now lives on to shape future learning activities.
Bridging Summative and Formative: A Paradigm Shift
Kurasa’s model showcases an important thought leadership stance in education: summative and formative assessment approaches are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. This paradigm shift – viewing summative exams as part of the learning process, not the end of it – addresses a long-standing false dichotomy in education. We often hear debates pitting “teaching to the test” against “teaching for understanding,” as if schools must choose one. But Kurasa is proving that it’s possible to teach for understanding by intelligently teaching to the test data. When exam results reveal misunderstandings, focusing on those areas is teaching for deeper understanding, not just test prep. In other words, the platform is helping teachers teach through the test, not merely to the test. This approach acknowledges the accountability pressures and turns them into pedagogical opportunities.
Critically, this integration of summative and formative strategies also helps teachers overcome some daily challenges. Studies have found that a majority of teachers struggle with identifying their students’ learning gaps and spend inordinate time on exam preparation and grading. By automatically analyzing assessments and pointing out gaps, Kurasa frees teachers from hours of guesswork and marking, letting them focus on crafting solutions and giving feedback. In a typical Kenyan classroom, a teacher might suspect that some students didn’t grasp a concept, but lack the time or tools to diagnose exactly who needs what help. Now, with a few clicks, they have a data-driven diagnosis and even a prescription for next steps. This kind of support is game-changing in an environment where teachers are overworked and under-supported. It’s no surprise, then, that teachers who pilot Kurasa have been impressed with its impact – they particularly appreciate the ease of creating assessments and the “insightful analytics” the system provides on student performance. Faster feedback cycles mean teachers can intervene sooner, and students receive the help they need before small misunderstandings grow into major deficiencies.
From a policy perspective, this blending of summative and formative aligns well with Kenya’s competency-based reforms. The CBC calls for ongoing assessment and timely feedback, but as experts pointed out, many teachers have struggled to implement those ideals in the face of remaining high-stakes exams. Kurasa offers a practical mechanism to do so. It recognizes that summative exams will remain a significant “north star” for schools – a reality policymakers acknowledge – yet it uses those very exams to reinforce the competencies and continuous improvement mindset that CBC envisions. In effect, it is helping create a culture where exams are not just for ranking and selection, but for reflection and enhancement of teaching. This is a subtle but powerful shift: exams become a means to an educational end, rather than the end itself.
Early Traction and Growing Interest
It is still early days for Kurasa, but the platform’s promising approach is already gaining traction among schools in Kenya and beyond. Dozens of forward-thinking schools have signed on to pilot or use Kurasa, and the numbers are quickly rising. Over 52,000 learners and 2,400 teachers are actively using the platform as of late 2024. The reception has been positive in private schools and is now spreading to public schools as well. In fact, Kurasa secured a partnership with the Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association (KEPSHA) to roll out the system in public schools – a strong vote of confidence from the educational leadership. This interest from KEPSHA and other stakeholders shows that school leaders see Kurasa not as a radical disruption, but as a valuable aid that works within existing structures. It helps them boost exam performance and improve teaching quality, a win-win that is very appealing in the current climate. The platform has also caught the attention of funders and innovators: it was selected as one of the 12 startups in the Mastercard Foundation’s Ed-Tech Fellowship programme, gaining both funding and recognition. Such support underscores that Kurasa’s ideas resonate with the broader goals of enhancing education outcomes in Africa.
Conclusion: Embracing Exams as Tools for Improvement
As education stakeholders – from policymakers to funders – look for ways to boost learning outcomes, Kurasa offers a compelling example of meeting the system where it is and nudging it forward. The reality is that summative exams will continue to play a major role in Kenyan education for the foreseeable future. Kurasa’s innovation is to embrace that reality and turn it to the students’ advantage. By working backwards from summative assessment results, the platform ensures that no exam is a wasted opportunity; each one becomes a chance to pinpoint gaps, refine teaching strategies, and ultimately lift student performance. This forward-looking approach demonstrates that data-driven instruction can thrive even in a summative-focused market. It sends a message that we need not choose between summative and formative strategies – we can weave them together for the benefit of our learners. The early success of Kurasa in Kenyan schools is a hopeful sign that such an integrated assessment culture is both possible and welcome. In time, as more schools adopt this model, we may well see a shift at the national level: exams used not just to judge learning, but to continually improve learning. That is a vision of education reform worth pursuing – one where every test is not an end, but the beginning of better teaching and deeper understanding for every child.
Sources: Kurasa internal reports and public releases;
Disrupt Africa (2024); Nation Media Group – Daily Nation (2023);
