Address crisis of confidence in exams body

Recent incidents of widespread leakages in national exams have undoubtedly undermined the credibility of our examinations and education systems.

This demands that decisive steps be taken to restore public confidence, but there is little evidence of this happening. In October last year, several media houses exposed the tragic extent of the rot when they managed to secure the actual questions that were carried in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams before they were officially administered to the candidates.

The questions were being circulated widely on social media platforms and were most likely seen by many candidates before they sat for the exams. This means the objective of the exams, which is testing the knowledge and skills of the students, was seriously undermined. The integrity of the two main national examinations — the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education — have a direct impact on the credibility of our overall education system and need to be jealously protected. It is through the two exams that the fate of millions of Kenyans is decided in terms of career choices as well as high school and university education among other critical things.

The Kenya National Examinations Council also oversees a host of other technical examinations whose credibility may also come into question if this confidence crisis with regard to KCPE and KCSE is not addressed urgently. Failure to tackle the crisis may lead to a scenario where qualifications of graduates are viewed with suspicion or rejection in the local and international job markets.

First, an independent forensic audit of the Kenya National Examinations Council and its systems of managing national exams, particularly the botched ones last year, is necessary.

This audit should be done to determine what exactly may have contributed to the leakages, whether it was weaknesses in the processes of managing the exams or integrity deficit among some staff members within or outside KNEC.

Such an independent investigation would eliminate the likelihood of repeating similar mistakes in future. So far, thorough and independent investigations don’t seem to have been done. It is understood that KNEC may have carried out internal investigations, but such an exercise needs to be carried out by an external and independent institution in order to be more meaningful and credible.

The results of the investigations should also be made public in order to initiate public debate and set in motion corrective reforms or actions that may have to be undertaken by KNEC and other stakeholders. KNEC officials continue to distance themselves from the leakages and instead point fingers at others including police officers who were guarding the exam scripts.

But police have also rejected the accusation against them. This blame game has left many questions unanswered. KNEC is still struggling to downplay the extent of the damage that the leakages have caused, insisting that “strict marking” of the examination scripts would catch the cheats and preserve the credibility of the results. The Ministry of Education, under the leadership of Dr Fred Matiang’i, who was recently transferred to the docket, should therefore establish an independent forensic mechanism to probe this critical issue before things go out of hand.

It recently emerged that Mbooni Member of Parliament Kisoi Munyao has filed a motion in Parliament seeking to have the top officials of KNEC relieved of their duties to be replaced by a new team as part of efforts to restore public confidence in the institution and the national exam system. The merits and demerits of the motion will be debated and decided by MPs when it comes to the floor of the house.

Secondly, Dr Matiang’i should convene a meeting of stakeholders and experts in the education sector to suggest other measures to preserve and enhance the credibility of the national examinations and education system that has suffered significantly from the recent mass leakages in KCSE.