KNUT, KUPPET now seek Parliament's help to recall 2016 KCSE results

L-R KUPPET Secretary General Akello Misori, KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion and KNUT treasurer John Matiang'i outside the court after a hearing. (Photo: George Njunge/Standard)

Teachers’ Unions are now lobbying Parliament to cause the recall of the 2016 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.  They accused the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) of setting up last year's candidates for failure in life.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and their Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), made a rare show of unity as they appeared before parliamentary committee seeking its help to rectify errors made during the marking and grading of last year's examination, which they argued led to mass failure.

The union officials told the Education Committee of the National Assembly that Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i and KNEC officials had changed the examination processes to deliberately fail the students and justify their fight against cheating, a move that condemned tens of thousands of the candidates, who can no longer compete with their past colleagues.

KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion told the committee that unless the examination results are recalled for moderation of marks, a mandatory process which he said was skipped, the candidates of 2016 would be disadvantaged and condemned.

"We are at a risk of forever disadvantaging the 2016 KCSE candidates in the job market. The implications of the glaring anomalies, deliberately committed in marking their examination are dire, and we seek the support of this House to rectify the mistake," Sossion told the committee.

KUPPET Secretary General Akello Misori also accused KNEC of failing to standardize the examination and having a very high grading system that saw many candidates perform poorly.

Acting committee chairman Jared K'Opiyo (Awendo) promised that the committee will interrogate the petition by the unions and seek responses from the Ministry and KNEC, a move which will consider the interests of candidates who may have been disadvantaged.

The unions said that in their efforts to curb cheating, KNEC skipped crucial stages of the examination marking and grading process, an anomaly that saw raw marks, which had not been counterchecked released to candidates.