Knec cannot hide behind the mask of cancellation of exam results, move on

NAIROBI: I wrote my East African Certificate of Education (EACE) Examinations in Chavakali High School, one and a half generations ago. It was a difficult age. In those days, only a handful of students from this Quacker school proceeded beyond school certificate. It was normal not to aspire beyond becoming an untrained primary school teacher (UT). We called them UTs. Few boys proceeded to “A” Level. Some came back to the same school for this course. Their academic journey would in any event end a year and a half later.

When completing our Form Five Selection forms, I drew harsh remarks from the Geography teacher. Mr Amagoye was piqued that I had placed the highly competitive Cardinal Otunga High School, Mosocho, as my first choice. Worse still, I had written in ink, contrary to the teachers’ very clear instructions that all forms should be completed in pencil. Their intent was to privately change your choice, casting the sights lower on your behalf. “So you think you are that smart?” he said angrily, “We shall see where this takes you.”

Things were that bad, way back in 1976. In Chavakali, you were not allowed to dream of places like Mosocho. In recent times, the academic wheel has gone full circle. Chavakali is among the top ten schools in the country. Mosocho is not even among the top 100. But tragedy has struck. Chavakali is among five national schools whose KCSE results have been cancelled.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education, Jacob Kaimenyi, says the boys cheated in English and Mathematics. The entire results for all 307 candidates have, therefore, been cancelled – wholesale. The same fate befell Kisii High School, with cancellation of results for 145 candidates out of 323. In Mang’u, they have withheld the results of one candidate while the fate of Nyabururu Girls in Kisii hangs in the balance.

These are mind-boggling happenings. What does it take for 307 candidates from the same school to cheat in a national exam? What, exactly, did these fellows do? Yes, we live in cheating and stealing times. A few years ago, teachers took students to the Samuel Bosire Commission on the Goldenberg heist, in Nairobi. The youth excitedly took autographs from master suspects in the scam. Imagine them going back to tell their colleagues that some celebrated corporate robber had given them autographs. Such children must grow up aspiring to become baron robbers. They must learn to cheat and steal in their own ways, as part of the preparation for things to come. They begin with what is readily available, such as stealing examinations.

But is it possible that an entire 307-candidate population could cheat in the same test paper? I refuse to believe. How did it happen? Did someone work out the answers for everybody on a chalkboard in the exam room? The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) owes the nation an explanation. They cannot just hide comfortably behind the mask of cancellation of examination results and move on. The public has a right to know. What was the examination council doing all this time as 307 candidates allegedly stole an exam? The council must accept its own liability in these matters.

One of the primary responsibilities of any exam council is assurance of the integrity of the exam and the exam process. If the exam leaks out, for example, the council must bite the bullet. Knec cannot, therefore, make perfunctory announcements about who stole what and simply move on. Someone within the system must pay.

Kenyans are reminded that Knec is one of the organisations recently adversely featured in the Chicken Gate case that jailed some people in the UK, for bribing senior Kenyan officials. Such a body does not imbue us with much confidence in its integrity. Is there a case for investigating the national examinations council and shaking up the place thoroughly? If the children must take a beating, some heads must also roll at Knec.

Besides, we need to reflect on the kind of justice that allows Knec to accuse candidates of stealing the exam, trying them in absentia and passing and executing sentence – all in one. Natural justice demands that any person headed for condemnation must be given the chance to be heard. What room has Knec given close to 3,000 candidates whose results were cancelled to be heard? When the nation allows bodies like Knec and some senior individuals there to walk away with such draconian decision, it entrenches corruption and impunity.

We are indeed reminded that last year there were allegations of senior people in Knec asking schools to bribe them, failing which their results would be cancelled. We treated that matter lightly and even forgot about it, in typical Kenyan national amnesia. Don’t we need to interrogate the integrity of this organisation?

Away from this, it is possibly time we reexamined the utility of remedies like cancelling the results of a whole school, on the basis that some irregularities have been suspected in some paper. The seriousness of the allegations notwithstanding, they remain allegations. The accused persons must be heard and the issues against them proved beyond reasonable doubt. The proof cannot be in a massive trial of 307 candidates – in absentia. Each candidate must be tried individually. They each sat in the exam room as individual candidates, with individual names and individual index numbers, making individual efforts to pass the exam.

We read in the good book about God intending to destroy the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorra, once long ago. Abraham the man of God said to God, “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty?” God pledged to spare the city, for the sake of even just ten righteous individuals who might be found there. (Genesis 18: 20 – 33). Unfortunately none were found.

Has the Ministry of Education conducted the Sodom and Gomorra test on our schools then? For if any one candidate can prove that he did not cheat in the exam, he must be given his results. Indeed, for the sake of such possible candidates, the ministry must rethink its massive punishment to schools. The worst it must do is to allow for supplementary exams in the offending subjects, within the next few weeks. Barring this, individual candidates must seek justice before the courts, where Knec and the Ministry of Education will be hard put to prove that the individuals stole the exam. For there is no justice in mass trials and convictions.

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