Education CS Fred Matiang'i to chair meeting on exams

Education CS Fred Matiang'i (Photo: Courtesy)

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i will this morning chair a meeting on securing this year’s national examinations.

Both the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the Kenya  Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations require substantial deployment of security officers.

The tests begin just days after the October 26 repeat presidential election, which also requires massive police deployment.

Sources hinted that the talks would cover the number of security officers to be deployed to guard the containers holding exam papers and how the papers would be secured during transportation to schools.

Enforcing exam security checks such as banning mobile phones in examination centres and intelligence gathering to arrest and prosecute examination cheats will also be discussed.

The second national examinations preparatory meeting will be attended by sub-county directors of education and deputy county commissioners.

The sub-county directors will be in charge of the examination paper containers.

Following a visit to St Paul’s Gekano in Nyamira County yesterday, Dr Matiang’i urged students to focus on their studies and exams.

“To all the students preparing for exams in Gekano, Kebirigo and all of Kenya, we wish you well. Our prayers are with you,” Matiangi posted on Twitter.

The meeting comes a month to the start of the 2017 KCPE and KCSE exams. A total of 1,003,556 candidates will sit this year’s KCPE tests while 615,773 were registered for KCSE papers.

Some 6,037 KCPE and 7,001 KCSE private candidates are also registered.

There will be 28,566 examination centres for KCPE and 9,350 for KCSE exams.

Matiang’i, attributed the success of last year’s examinations to security decisions.

“A raft of new measures implemented in the administration of examinations last year helped the Ministry of Education to mount the most credible exercise yet in Kenya’s history,” he said.

The measures include reorganisation of the academic calendar, appointment of head teachers as centre managers and creation of an exclusive examinations season.