Knec rejects calls to cancel exams

The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) Saturday rejected calls from the Church, political leaders and even parents for it to cancel the on-going Form Four exams that have been leaked.

At a time when the social media is awash with genuine papers even before the exams are written, Knec insisted that it was doing everything “within its powers to ensure the exams remain credible”.

Saturday the council stepped up warnings that anyone cheating would face the full wrath of the law, including a three-year ban from sitting exams and prosecution in a court of law.

The council’s chairman, Prof Kabiru Kinyanjui, and the chief executive Joseph Kivilu, who had spent the better part of the morning holed up in a meeting with Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi and top ministry officials, said the exams, which were more than half-way done, will proceed until they are concluded.

“I wish to assure Kenyans that the examinations are secure and will continue as scheduled,” said Kivilu.

At a news conference convened at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education in Nairobi’s Jogoo House, the Knec bosses exuded confidence about the security of the exams.

Kaimenyi, in whose name the news conference was convened, was absent but the Knec bosses sat on his chair and told the country that they were speaking with his full blessings after they reached the decision for the exams to continue “by consensus”.

“The council is always concerned about the issues of validity and reliability of the national examinations and it always does what is within its powers to ensure that the examinations remain credible,” said Kivilu.

The statistics that the exams council released Saturday show that at least 14 teachers and 70 candidates spread across eight counties had been arrested for examination irregularities.

But so far, according to Knec, “all the papers were successfully done despite the alleged leakage.” The security monitoring team of the exams council has also confiscated 40 mobile phones.

The teachers, candidates and university students are also some of the suspects of examination irregularities. The teachers and candidates are both from private and public schools. The counties affected by the examination irregularities are Nairobi, Meru, Kisii, Mombasa, Kilifi, Nyandarua, Kiambu and Nakuru.

Knec is likely to find it difficult to keep tabs on the extent of the damage. Their hope is that examiners will detect those who cheated when it comes to marking the exams.

“After Knec receives examination answer scripts, there are other processes that are used to identify any suspected examination irregularities,” said Kivilu.

Normally when exams are leaked, Knec would issue emergency papers, but this time, it appears either they didn’t prepare the emergency papers, or they were caught off-guard. Kivilu said the cheating was not different from what has happened in the previous years and downplayed fears that the teachers picked to supervise and invigilate the exams could be trying to make money after the government refused to pay their September salaries, simply because they were on strike.

“We can’t say it is teachers, because we know many of them are committed to doing their work,” said Kivilu.