The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination kicks off on Monday with 664,585 candidates expected to take the test. As was the case with the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination, which ended on Thursday, this year’s Form Four test will be tightly monitored by the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) and security agencies to ward off malpractices.
The government is expected to deploy its machinery to seal loopholes in the examinations, including stamping out collusion which led to the cancellation of results for 1,205 candidates last year.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has already indicated that all government agencies will be out to ensure that the examination goes on well. More than 1,000 special monitors drawn from various ministries and government departments have been lined up for the examination.
UNDER SCRUTINY
Although examination monitoring will cover the whole country, some 222 schools have been put under heavy scrutiny due to links to previous examination malpractices.
After last week’s incident in Narok County where the KCPE Science and Kiswahili papers disappeared, forcing the field officers to photocopy the materials, the Kenya National Examination Council has warned that it has enhanced security to safeguard the integrity of the tests.
However, the major concern is failure by most candidates to answer questions requiring elaborative responses which the Ministry of Education says are inadequately tackled. Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed is expected to lead the monitoring team across the country in an exercise that ends on November 28.
