Kerio Valley KCPE candidates post impressive results despite attacks

Marion Kimutai scored 417 marks and Immaculate Jerono recorded 401. [File, Standard]

Despite panic during the examination period following gun battles near schools in the Kerio Valley, candidates posted stellar performances in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams.

They had little time to prepare, especially from January when candidates in other schools were revising.

Instead, the pupils were trying to stay away from the intense bandit attacks that had moved to areas near schools.

In January, two women and a man were shot dead near Liter Primary School in Marakwet East, barely two weeks after an attack sparked panic at St Benedict’s Arror Girls.

But the KCPE candidates at St Benedict’s School of Peace, Arror, which is adjacent to the girls’ secondary school, posted stellar results.

Marion Kimutai scored 417 marks and Immaculate Jerono recorded 401.

“There have been a lot of interruptions since January. Bandits launched attacks in areas not far from our school but despite the fear, I worked hard,” said Kimutai, the leading candidate.

In January, police recorded attacks near compounds of at least five schools. A banditry attack was reported near Kombases Primary School in February when a herder was killed during the shootout. Several candidates at Chugor Primary School in the Kerio escarpments posted more than 400 marks.

Abigael Kipchumba, Immaculate Maiyo, Elvis Murkomen and Caroline Kipchumba posted 414, 413, 407 and 403 marks respectively.

Lynn Kimosop, Cynthia Chelimo and Angela Kimutai, also from Chugor Primary scored 402, 401 and 400 respectively. A school on the Elgeyo Marakwet-West Pokot border where a mother and her two children were shot dead also posted impressive results.

Teacher Evans Kimutai said the leading student in Sambalat Primary School had 360 marks and a big number scored over 330 marks. 

“Results in Kerio Valley would have been excellent if not for the disturbance caused by the banditry attacks,” Mr Kimutai said. In February, the government announced plans to merge KCPE centres to guarantee candidates’ safety but later dropped the idea. Pupils in the banditry-hit region sat the tests in their registered examination centres.

Government officials in Elgeyo Marakwet said the security apparatus changed tack, and instead deployed police officers to man all examination centres during the three-day exam period. Elgeyo Marakwet County Commissioner John Korir said the relocation of exam centres during the period would have exposed candidates to security risks.

Mr Korir said most of the centres that KCPE candidates would have been moved to are far from their schools and homes. They would have been forced to walk long distances through banditry hotspots.

“We put adequate security arrangements along the Kerio Valley and all exam centres were manned adequately,” the commissioner said.

He said security agencies in consultation with the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) resolved to exempt Kerio Valley from the merger of exam centres with less than 30 candidates with centres that have more than 30 students.