KNEC asks students to submit views on cheating

By AUGUSTINE ODUOR

Kenya National Examination Council has asked students to submit their views on examination management as the Council moves to enact the Bill to streamline conduct in national assessments.

Knec secretary Paul Wasanga said the Council has extended the period by two weeks to allow students and candidates to submit their input. The initial deadline elapsed on Friday.

Wasanga said students are often most affected when examination results are cancelled and noted that this is their time to present their views.

Kenya National Examinations Council Secretary Paul Wasanga. [Photo: File/Standard]

"We have heard a lot of reactions from stakeholders when examination results are cancelled. Usually they say we are punishing the children. We want the children themselves to tell us what they think about examination management," he said.

Last year alone, some 2,927 candidates in 154 examination centres had their results cancelled after they were involved in examination irregularities.

It also emerged that students had devised fresh avenues of cheating even as the government abhors the vice.

Speaking to the Standard on Friday, Wasanga said the ministry of education is developing a draft Knec Bill with a raft of recommendations to curb the vice.

He asked all other players, including students, to send their comments to ensure that it reflects the overall expectations and consensus on the conduct of examinations in Kenya.

Among the recommendations of the Bill is that all exam cheats and their accomplices may soon risk a ten-year jail sentence, a Sh2 million fine, or both.

This means that ‘any person who before or during an examination conducted by the Council has in his or her possession or under their control any examination paper or part of it would be committing a criminal offence’, read the Bill in part.

It would also be criminal for any person to leak an examination before or during the sitting and that anyone who discloses the contents of examination paper or material to candidate or another person could be jailed for up to five years or a fine of up to Sh1million or both.

This comes as an audit report has sucked primary school heads and principals into the growing examination irregularities mess in the country.

The "Report of the 2000 KCSE Investigation Committee On Examination Irregularities" found that cheating occurred when examination supervisors in liaison with some head teachers opened examination papers meant for the afternoon in the morning.

The committee report says that the team received evidence that some teachers were encouraged by their head teachers to meet and interact with candidates between morning and afternoon papers.

This would be a thing of the past as the Bill says: "a person who recklessly or willfully assists or causes any examination candidate to obtain or gain unauthorised possession of any examination paper, material or information would also be committing an offence."

The aim of the Bill is to, among other things, align the KNEC law to the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 and to internationally acknowledge good practices regarding examinations.

Since the KNEC Act was enacted much has happened in the legislative, policy and administrative spheres.

These subsequent changes in the legal environment and in policy as well as the experience of KNEC, during the years it has been administering examinations, make it imperative to review and generally update the law.