Tips to pass Islamic Religious Education (IRE) in KCSE

  

Date Posted: 8/4/2018 3:28:40 AM

Posted By: Dullayo  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 1727

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The new education policies in Kenya touching on examinations have left examinees across the country perplexed. It has made it difficult for learners to understand these examination techniques. Students across the country have faced numerous challenges in passing the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) more specifically the humanities subjects that used to be a boost to examinees for instance History and Government, Christian Religious Education, Islamic Religious Education, Geography among others. However, Islamic Religious Education which has always made many learners get better grades has for the past three years made examinees fear taking it as a booster.
Here are tips to overcome the growing fear among students taking IRE as a subject;

First and foremost, students have to know and understand that testing has taken a new direction in the sense that from obvious questions to questions that require a deeper understanding for example, in the KCSE IRE paper 1 2009, question 1c stated, ‘State ways in which the Quran has been protected from interpolation,’ thus this question required any answer on the method that can be used to protect the Quran from any kind of distortion. However, in KCSE IRE paper 1 2017, the question stated, ‘Give ways in which the Quran has been preserved in its original form,’ the methods that were required here as answers are those which show how the Quran has been preserved in its original form which means how it is preserved in its Arabic language. Answers such as the Quran has been translated into other languages were invalid because translation into other languages make the Quran not remain in its original form that is Arabic.

Secondly, students should have clear mastery of content right from Form 1 to Form 4.

Thirdly, learners have to put in mind that there is integration of different topics for

example, a question can be tested as, Justify that Islam is against slavery? To get answers to this kind of questions, students must borrow answers from different topics. One is on the History of Islam on how the prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) advocated for the freeing of slaves and that they are human beings with full rights, therefore, they should not be mistreated and their rights denied. We can also get answers from devotional acts that means Islam has made freeing of slaves as purification from certain sins. For example, on Dhihar divorce, freeing of slaves is on of expiation for the divorce. Similarly, for Kafara Saum, the freeing of slaves is an expiation for the sin.

Another important technique to pass the subject is that teachers should help learners to draw lessons from the topics and sub topics that they teach. This should be so because in the recent years, questions touching on lessons have continuously been repeated for example, what lessons do Muslims learn from the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah? Earlier on, examiners used to test on the effects of treaties or battles. Moreover, sometimes they would use terminologies in the same question for example, State and explain... This used to make examinees earn marks first for stating and secondly for explaining but in the recent years they would only use one examination testing technique for example, state…, explain…, describe… among others. This means if a student gives a point and explains the point wrongly, he/she is denied the full marks and no half a mark is given.

In addition, learns should also understand that for any answer to be valid and be accepted, it must be not less than six (6) words that is at least a sentence. This applies to testing techniques for example, state, explain, discuss and elaborate among others. Therefore the examinee is required to give more details but most learners fail to do this since they lack explanation for certain concepts.

Last but not least, IRE students should make thorough revision of past KCSE papers to guide them and give them a hint of what may come. Not forgetting to make them familiarize with the questions and know how they are tested.

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