By Hillary Mageka

The government has put in place stringent measures and penalties to curb cheating and leakages in the forthcoming national examinations.

While announcing that preparations for this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations were complete, Education Cabinet secretary George Magoha said penalties would include instant interdiction and sacking of any government official under whose jurisdiction the vice takes place.

Magoha said the government has introduced stiff penalties for anyone who will attempt to abet cheating or leaking the national exams.

According to CS, who leads a multi-sectoral team comprising the ministries of Education, Interior and Coordination of National Government and ICT, tasked with securing the integrity of national exams, anyone who will be implicated in cheating will  be prosecuted.

“There are still a few crooks out there, but no exam will be seen until the morning of the examination. We know the tricks they have employed, our surveillance teams will go up to two kilometres from exam centres,” Magoha warned.

The CS said they have sealed all cheating loopholes and will also monitor the returning of scripts. 

Delegating duty

Magoha was speaking yesterday at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi, in the company of Interior Cabinet secretary Fred Matiang’i and Principal secretaries Belio Kipsang (Education), Karanja Kibicho (Interior) and Jerome Ochieng’ (ICT). The CS asked deputy county commissioners and sub-county directors of education to ensure that exams go on as scheduled.

“I want to correct some position as I thank the provincial administration; there is nothing like delegating the key to exam containers to somebody else. You shall have the key and you shall not delegate your powers,” he warned.

Four police officers will be assigned to every container in the 28,000 distribution centres across the country, with two officers working during day and the other two taking over at night. They will work under a supervisor.

Addressing the meeting, Matiang’i announced that in consultation with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), the government had suspended leave for all public servants involved in exam administration, including teachers and police officers across the country.

 Announcing that he will be on duty throughout the exam period, the minister warned that no mistakes from teachers or security teams dispatched to oversee the examinations will be tolerated.

“We are not going to allow any of our security people, especially the senior ones, to take leave because you know this time of the year is when we all have to focus on the welfare of our children,” he said.

“Fortunately, the President has been focusing on empowering and strengthening us, this year we have more resources; we have more aircraft from the police, which means we will be moving around without any problem,” he added.

According to TSC, this year’s exams will have 28,000 school heads as centre managers.

An additional 145,429 officials will be deployed as supervisors and invigilators, and a further 33,720 teachers will be involved in the marking of both the KCPE and KCSE. “I have no doubt that this incredible number of teachers will deliver a credible examination,” TSC chief executive Nancy Macharia said.

A total of 1.78 million candidates have been registered by the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) for the 2019 exams. Of the registered students, 1,089,671 are KCPE candidates in 27,809 centres while 698,935 students will sit KCSE papers in 10,304 centres.

The primary exam will take place between October 29 and 31. Rehearsals will be done on October 28 while the secondary school one will be conducted between October 21 and November 27. 

Meanwhile, Interior PS Kibicho, his ICT counterpart Ochieng’ and Education’s Kipsang’ have promised to take political responsibility by vacating office should any leakage and cheating happen during administration of the exams.

In a televised commitment pledge, the three alongside other education official pledged to provide administrative leadership for the  examination process to ensure its integrity and transparency.