Education PS Dr. Belio Kipsang during the release of the 2022 KCPE results at Mitihani House. [Silas Otieno, Standard]

Education Principal Secretary Dr Belio Kipsang has said the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination results will be released by January 23 before schools reopen.

Speaking on Friday when he supervised the release of the final examination materials at Langata West sub-county container, Kipsang said marking starts immediately.

''Most of us, as you know, have to go out to celebrate Christmas but we shall be running around to make sure that we are prepared to let our children know their status before schools open on January 23," said Kipsang.

He said results must be ready within the short time. "So it means we have very short time and we are kicking of the exercise as soon as we finish what we are doing today, so it will be a marathon,'' said Kipsang.

The PS, said the Form Four exams were done successfully and peacefully without hitches that usually occur like insecurity.

He said the collaboration between the Ministry of Education, Interior and National Administration and Information and Communication Technology(ICT) contributed to the success.

''We are very grateful because our brothers in the Ministry of Interior and National Administration created a conducive environment that was able to make it possible for our children to do their examinations,'' said Kipsang.

''Even in regions where we had experienced some insecurity, the environment was very peaceful and this time the children did not hear any gun shots anywhere thus a uniform playing field across the country,'' he added.

He said the conducive environment, also saw good results in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education(KCPE) released on Wednesday.

He attributed this to the good spread in KCPE performance across the country.

The PS lauded the teachers, who he said were very careful and took good time to prepare their pupils within the shortest academic year of six months that they were in school.

''If there are people Kenyans need to celebrate are our teachers because what they have done in 21 months running three calender academic years is not anything that anyone of us would have done and all of us out there let us celebrate them,'' he added.

The normal academic calendar year was disrupted by Covid-19 pandemic which saw schools close on March 16, 2020, then partially reopened on 19 October 2020, and fully reopened on 4 January 2021, a period of about nine months.

From January 2023, learning will resume the normal academic calendar year.

In the disrupted calendar, children would close for few days thus giving parents hard time to raise money for shopping and school fees.