Quality council vows to seal loopholes in academic certification

The new Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) council yesterday vowed to eradicate shortcuts taken by unscrupulous Kenyans to achieve qualifications over the years.

New KNQA Council chairman, Dr Kilemi Mwiria said the ‘hop-step-and-jump’ achievement route and the ‘buying’ of certificates is grossly unfair to learners who merit their places in educational institutions, employers and the public.

He said that such a system is particularly unfair to the poor who get disadvantaged twice by working hard with limited resources to secure a qualification, which they cannot sell on graduation, yet those not nearly as qualified secure both the certificate and jobs.

“All of us in the Council will be vetted and then we present our certificates to Kenyans before we go to the rest of the public sector.

We need to check those who took advantage of the system. Certification must be issued on merit,” said Mwiria, in his inaugural speech as the council chairman.

National qualifications

He also said that going forward, the national qualifications framework will be the principal instrument for ascertaining learner achievement and quality assurance.

This, he said, will be done by closely assessing records of what has been learned and achieved and by registering qualifications to enable national recognition of acquired skills and knowledge towards an integrated and robust system.

“In the long run, the intention is to equate and harmonise educational standards and certificates across the East African region and the continent and ultimately with the rest of the world.

This way, our young people can move to any part of the world and have their qualifications recognised for further training or employment,” said Dr Mwiria.

The authority has been running without a council for the last two years, which has slowed down its key activities and programmes.

Inauguration of the Council was presided over by TVET PS and CAS Dr Julius Jwan and Zack Kinuthia respectively.

He said KNQA will play its role in ensuring improvement of the quality of education provided by the country’s training and employment sectors by creating a world-class qualification system which can produce competent graduates, employees and entrepreneurs.

Mwiria said the Kenya National Qualification Framework will be about promoting equitable access and equity regarding quality, relevance and achievement of qualifications.

This will be done by applying an objective evidence-based and flexible evaluation of competencies.