President William Ruto has assured parents and students set to take their national examinations starting next week that his administration has undertaken all the measures in preparation for the exercise.
Speaking at State House on Thursday, October 17, 2024, during the Presidential Award Ceremony, Ruto authoritatively confirmed that candidates will be accorded adequate security during the exam period.
The Head of State further explained that the Ministry of Education has assigned adequate supervisors and invigilators to all exam centres.
With all the measures in place, Ruto challenged the candidates sitting for the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams to put their best foot forward as his government is ready to mentor them after the tests.
“I know we are beginning exams for both KCSE and KPSEA next week. Let me take this occasion to wish the 965,000 of our students who will be participating in our KCSE examination and the 1.3 million of our pupils who will be participating in the KPSEA examinations my very best wishes.
“My message of good luck to all of them as they undertake these exams, may God’s guidance, fortitude and grace be with them and as we have agreed as a government, the Ministry of Education has concluded all the arrangements of making sure that this examinations are undertaken from next week all the way for the next month,” Ruto said.
“They have made sure that there will be adequate security and adequate supervision- all the invigilators are in place- and now I want to ask all the students to take these exams understanding that the prayers of their parents and all of us are on them,” he added.
Exam timetable
His message comes a day after the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) released the exam timetable for KPSEA.
KNEC announced that the KPSEA rehearsals will commence on Friday, October 25, 2024, followed by the main examination, which will run from Monday, October 28, 2024, to Wednesday, October 30, 2024.
“The time allowed for each paper is indicated against the name of the paper and no extra time is to be allowed. Time for reading through questions is part of the time shown on the question paper except where special paper instructions indicate differently,” KNEC said.
According to the timetable, KPSEA candidates will sit for a mathematics paper in the followed by an English paper in the mid-morning.
On the second day, they will sit for the Integrated Science paper in the morning and Kiswahili/Kenyan Sign Language in mid-morning.
On the last day, candidates will sit for the Creative Arts and Social Studies paper in the morning.
Speaking ahead of the exams, Principal Secretary of the State Department for Basic Education, Dr. Belio Kipsang, called on stakeholders to promote credibility.
“We call upon all our stakeholders to adhere to the guidelines given to guard against all sorts of malpractices so as to enhance the credibility, validity and reliability of the examinations and assessments. I want to congratulate KNEC for fully migrating to e-assessment and e-marking of teacher examinations,” Belio Kipsang stated.
