Last year, KCPE results were released November 21 with KCSE released December 20. Previous years, KCPE results were released just after Christmas and KCSE moved to the following year. It emerged that the new marking machines – Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) – used for the first time last year, have been fine-tuned to speed marking of Insha and Composition papers.
“If we want to, we may even release the results after three days,” Magoha said. Under the new plan, marked scripts will be scanned though the machines to verify marks in record time, compared to previous years when tallying was done manually. Optical Mark Recognition is the process of capturing marked data from candidates’ answer sheets using specialised scanning. Scripts will be marked in batches of 100 and 200 sheets, unlike the previous technology which took many hours. Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed said reforms introduced into the examinations sector in the past two years had played a pivotal role in improving the whole examinations process. “National examinations are now more credible than they have ever been, and stand as a reliable measure of the level of achievement of individual candidates,” said Amina.
The CS said that issues noted in the administration of last year’s examinations have been rectified.
