KCSE 2023 results ready! to be released early next week in Nairobi

Results for 903,260 candidates who sat the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams are ready.

The results will be released early next week at the famous Mitihani House by Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu.

However unlike the previous years the 2023 KCSE results will be available through the portal Kenya Education Management Information System (KEMIS) which was unveiled by the CS.

Parents and candidates will have to visit the portal and key in KCSE names and index numbers to access the results.

The long wait for the results, the CS said is due to three factors.

The results were to be released on Friday 29th December but CS Machogu postponed the exercise saying the results are undergoing compilation, verification and validation.

“We are done with the marking. What we are currently doing is compiling the marks, verification and validation. You know it’s quite a process. So that by the end of the day, we release credible results,” said Machogu in an exclusive interview.

The 2023 KCSE candidates will however benefit from a new grading system aimed at increasing the number of students joining universities.

The new grading structure was unveiled in August. The grading system recommended by the Presidential Working Party, on Education Reforms reduces the number of compulsory subjects and focuses on those they are strong in.

The students will be graded on their performance in two compulsory subjects, that is, Mathematics and any language including English, Kiswahili, or National Sign Language.

This is a departure from the current system in which students are graded on seven subjects (English, Mathematics, Kiswahili, two sciences and two others).

This will result in more students achieving better overall scores to qualify for post-secondary education.

The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) has done away with the previous system where five subjects were mandatory, a method expected to increase the number of candidates qualifying for their upper education.

“Even the entry grade for University Education, the numbers will increase because last year we had 173,000 Kenyans out of 887,000 getting C+ and above, that is university entry which is 19 per cent, regionally Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania the percentage of people going to university is about 30 per cent,” Machogu explained.

The CS said he is worried that last year’s candidates almost 40 per cent which is around 354,000 had D, D- and E.

The CS said he is worried that last year’s candidates almost 40 per cent which is around 354,000 had D, D- and E.

Mr Machogu said PWPER found that the current system is disadvantageous to some learners whose best subjects are not taken into account if they are not within the cluster.

“Previously compulsory subjects included Mathematics, English Language, Kiswahili and two Sciences.

But this time round, we will only have two compulsory subjects that are Mathematics and English Language, Kiswahili or National Sign Language. We are doing this to allow learners to explore subjects they are good at,” he explained.

He said learners are gifted differently with some good in either Social Sciences, Arts and Sports, and Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

However, the CS said thanks to the Competency-Based Curriculum, learners will have three pathways to pursue in Senior School including Social Sciences, Arts and Sports, and Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

The CS assured Kenyans that the KCSE results will be credible.

This is after the government changed the mode of collection of national examination papers administered to the 2023 KCSE candidates.

Centre Managers and Exams Supervisors for KCSE picked the exams twice daily from the examination containers, a departure from before when the papers were picked once a day and stored in the office leading to early exposure.

However, CS Machogu said his Ministry in conjunction with a multi-agency team led by Interior and ICT counterparts managed to minimise early exposure through new tough guidelines.

Some rules included remapping schools to facilitate easier access to the nearest storage container which was increased by 82 bringing the total to 576, allowing only secondary school teachers to invigilate, supervise and examine the tests.

“This time round we did something which has never been done. In the afternoon paper where we used to have major issues, we made sure it was picked separately from the morning exam. However, it came with additional expense,” said Mr Machogu.

However, the CS said the new guidelines paid off through curbing cheating.

“We were able to control any malpractice. But most likely the latest we are releasing KCSE is the second week of February,” disclosed the CS during an exclusive interview.

He expressed confidence that the exams were marked fairly.
“I am 100 per cent confident that the test was marked fairly. This time we increased the number of marking centres from 35 to 40 such that the working conditions were better than before,” he added.