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More than 20 people have so far been arrested across the country for examination irregularities after they were detected using security features on the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) papers.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said the suspects were nabbed  at various exam centres after their tricks were detected using the special security features.

He however warned that the numbers may rise if unscrupulous officials expose the remaining papers before the scheduled time.

 “You may ask how we know precisely where the paper was exposed — that paper is a security document and when exposed, you will not know how we are going to trail where it was exposed.

Certain papers are meant for specific areas and for certain schools. So you may think you are very smart but this has taken Government quite a bit of time to develop,” Magoha said after supervising the exam at Kenya High School.

He said the process to clean up the exam process started five years ago and that cheating no longer exists right from development to storage to transporting to the container.

Magoha, however regretted that at the container level, there are still few but persistent rogue people who keep on collecting money from the public and selling fake papers and have continually exposed the exam, particularly the second paper of the day.

Arrests have been made in Garissa, Homa Bay, Mandera, Kisii and Kisumu. He said the ministry is trailing a centre manager in Homa Bay, who exposed Agriculture paper, written yesterday.

Officials arrested

He said 11 examination officials have been arrested in the last one week using impermeable security features of the examinations over attempts to expose the exam.

They include a supervisor and centre managers at John Mbadi School and Adega Mixed in Homa Bay respectively, a centre manager and two supervisors in El-Hagarsu Mixed school in Mandera.

Another centre manager and two supervisors from Kerongorori Mixed, Kisii were also arrested, a centre manager in Huda Secondary in Garissa as well as a center manager and supervisor in  Moro Secondary in Nyakach, Kisumu.

But even with the arrests, the CS assured that it does no mean that the candidates of affected schools are at any risk because the papers will be marked with due diligence.

He reiterated that attempts to access exams have not interfered with the credibility of the examinations as the exposed questions were never accessed by the candidates.

“We warn anyone who intends to compromise the integrity of exams that tough action will be meted out to them… and when I say exposed, it means they usually target the second paper of the day at the earliest opportunity to open it up and send it but because of technology, we are able to pick where the paper was opened and there will be consequences,” the CS warned.

He assured that even though the first batch of students completed their exams on April 12, the rest would continue to take their exam peacefully until April 21.

“I want to assure the public that this early exposure actually means nothing. You first of all open the paper illegally, assemble a few teachers somewhere who may not be all that intelligent to do the paper very quickly and then start try to transmit the results to children in the hall,” the CS said.

He warned candidates for the remaining papers that the Ministry will always know when results are transmitted to them because the time for taking the exam is too short and they are likely to repeat what has been sent to them.