Agony as 380 students fail to get results over irregularities

A parent walks out of Emesa AIC Secondary school in Kisii County.

At least 380 students from three secondary schools in Kisii County did not get their KCSE results over examination irregularities.

There was shock at Nyabisase SDA Mixed Secondary School after almost all the 285 students got a Y grade in the results. A total of 317 sat for their KCSE, meaning just 32 received the results.

Kisii County Education Director Pius Ngoma is set to hold a crisis meeting with officials in the affected schools over the matter.

Parents and affected candidates, who had turned up at the school to inquire why they did not get results, were barred from accessing the compound.

Security guards manning the gate refused to let them in despite their pleas saying they were under strict instructions not to allow anybody into the school compound.

Efforts to reach principal David Ogega were futile as he did not answer our calls and was said to have travelled to Nairobi to establish what led to the massive cancellations.

Saturday Standard established that the students had been denied entry into the school since Wednesday afternoon when the results were announced by Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha.

“The fact that no one has been allowed in since the results were released is a clear indicator that things were not good in the school which has been posting good results in the past,” said James Mogaka, a neighbour.

At Moteraibe Secondary School, 77 students had their results cancelled owing to irregularities in the physics paper.

Principal David Osoro said of the 331 students who sat their exam, the performance was generally good with two scoring a B plus, 10 B plain, 25 B minus, 31 C plus, 51 C plain, 70 C minus, 55 D plus, nine with D plain and 77 with Y Grade.

“The Kenya National Examination Council is yet to communicate to us over what may have happened since we obeyed all regulations guiding the conduct of national exams,” said Osoro.

At Emesa AIC Secondary School, the Saturday Standard team only found a security guard and after speaking to the principal Wilfred Moochi on the telephone, he denied there were irregularities despite evidence showing that 22 students had a Y grade. Moochi instead criticised the media for portraying his school negatively and refused to share the official results. However, results in our possession bearing his signature show there were irregularities.

The principal stated that he was not at liberty to disclose the results since he was no longer the head of the school, claiming he had been moved to another institution.

At the start of the exams, Prof Magoha warned that the state security agents were monitoring Kisii and Migori over rampant examination irregularities.