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St Francis Girl’s High School- Mang’u, the KCSE marking centre in Gatundu North has been closed indefinitely.

In what has fully paralyzed the marking exercise, over 1,000 teachers who have been marking the Christian Religious Education (CRE) paper one have been given 30 minutes to leave the centre.

Tens of heavily armed police officers have been deployed at the centre to fast-track the closure process.

Journalists found covering the standoff outside the centre have also been ordered to leave the area by sleuths.

At the centre, Education CS Ezekiel Machogu and Teachers Service Commission (CEO) Nancy Macharia are held up in a crisis meeting to determine the cause of action after the noble exercise stopped throwing possible release of KCSE exams this month in disarray.

A section of teachers who spoke to journalists on conditions of anonymity expressed their dissatisfaction with how the exercise is being conducted.

Among others, the aggrieved examiners cited intimidation, dictatorial leadership by the centre manager, poor pay, and the introduction of punitive examination marking policies.

“Examiners marking the CRE papers must be paid like other assessors. We cannot accept Ksh55 per paper marked when our colleagues marking other subjects are taking home Ksh78 for the same job,” an examiner said.

By the time of publishing this story, teachers were leaving the centre one by one while all unauthorized persons were chased away from the centre.