Knec certificates to contain enhanced security features

Wendy Adhiambo Ondigo is carried by teachers at Kisumu Girls High School on December 20, 2017 during celebrations. She scored an A-(minus) (Denish Ochieng, Standard)

It is good news for 1.6 million candidates who sat the national examinations last year as they receive their certificates from next week.

Candidates will be given 60 days to verify details printed on their certificates and report cases to Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) for correction.

A penalty of up to Sh5,000 has been fixed for those who will fail to verify their details within the set period.

The offer comes as Knec enhanced security measures in national examinations administration and stepped up preparations with only one month to the start of this year’s tests.

Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed and Fred Matiang’i of Interior have already cautioned examination cartels against interfering with this year’s national examinations. It has emerged that some people use fake certificates to seek jobs while others illegally lay claim to academic papers.

“We request all institutions, employers and other persons who always verify with us to ascertain authenticity of the academic papers presented to them,” said Knec Chief Executive Officer Mercy Karogo.

Sources at Knec revealed that cases of imposters attempting to infiltrate the examination administration occasioned introduction of new features in test papers.

All question and answer sheets have names of students permanently printed. The school code numbers, candidates’ indexes and name of school are also permanently printed on the examination papers to keep off imposters.

This is a marked departure from previous years where candidates wrote all their details. For KCSE, all examination questions have been allocated adequate answer spaces, ending the era of separate answer sheets per question paper, an avenue previously exploited to abet cheating.

And for KCPE, multiple choice answer sheets contain personalised details, to ensure the right candidates write the examinations.

The two-month window to candidates to verify their details is part of efforts to ensure academic papers are genuine and contain true details of Knec certificate holders. This means that candidates will now have a chance to confirm if the grades printed in the certificates match the scores contained in the results slips issued last year. Students will also take advantage of the two-month window to check spellings of their names and if the photographs printed on their certificates match their faces. Karogo told Saturday Standard that during registration of candidates, mistakes may have occurred, occasioning mismatch of photographs and spellings of names of some candidates.

“We have had cases of various mistakes made during uploading of the students details, most of which are done in cyber cafes. We want to allocate sufficient time for candidates, teachers and even parents to look at the certificates and within the time allocated,” Ms Karogo said.

She said that in some cases, schools names were mis-spelt and codes mismatched, a hitch she attributed to challenges during registration process. “When the verification window lapses and someone presents a correction to the council we shall charge a levy,” Karogo said.

Documents from Knec reveals that KCPE candidates who fail to verify their details and lodge complain after the deadlines will be charged Sh3,000. And KCSE candidates will be charged Sh5,000 to make corrections after lapse of the verification deadline.

However, after the window closes, amendments to the certificates can only be done through a formal communication write detailing origin of mistake. Any queries about the certificates can only be raised by the students, teachers, parents or guardians.

Sub-county Director of Education may also raise complaints to the council on behalf of candidates. Some 993,718 candidates sat KCPE last year with another 611,952 sitting KCSE examinations.

The candidates were examined in the month of October and November last year. Examination results were processed and released on November 20 for KCPE and December 23 for KCSE.