HARSH WEATHER
She spoke during a briefing session of those to be involved in the practicals. The Education Ministry and Knec are leaving nothing to chance, especially after the Meteorological department said rains could pound most parts of the country in the coming two weeks.
In previous years, failure to plan for harsh weather caused problems, especially in flood-prone counties like Tana River. In 2017, bad weather was blamed for the late start of some papers in parts of northern Kenya.
SPECIAL NEEDS
On Thursday, Education Minister Amina Mohamed briefed the Cabinet on the level of preparedness for the KCPE and KCSE examinations. The meeting was chaired by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The Cabinet Secretary said candidates with special needs would be taken care of. The partially blind will get large print papers while blind candidates will have Braille papers, she added. Ms Mohamed said Sh4.2 billion has been set aside for the administration of the examinations.
SUPERVISORS
Some 264,446 field officers will be involved in the national tests. The minister said there will be 180,735 field officers for KCPE and 83,711 for KCSE. For KCPE, a total of 27,161 centre managers will be deployed. There will be 27,354 supervisors and 65,107 invigilators while security personnel will total 54,322. Some 6,791 drivers will help distribute the examination materials, the Cabinet Secretary added.
CANDIDATES
For the KCSE examination, there will be 10,078 centre managers, 10,460 supervisors, 37,978 invigilators, 20,156 security personnel and 5,039 drivers. More boys than girls will sit the national examinations this year, a report presented to the committee showed. According to the report, a total of 531,548 boys will write the KCPE examination while female candidates are 529,155. The report adds that 341,089 boys will sit the KCSE examination compared to 323,498 girls.
SECURITY
