KCPE to be released next week

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results will be ready by the end of this week.

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu said by next week, all the 1.4 million candidates will have known their results, ushering in the last pursuit for Form One slots.

Mr Machogu (pictured) yesterday revealed that the marking of the 2023 KCPE exam had been finalised, bringing to an end the cutthroat primary education examinations under the 8-4-4 system.

“We have done the marking, it is finished, and we are going to release the KCPE exams any time next week,” he said.

The CS said the release of the result will pave way for the Form One placement exercise, which he said, will take place before Christmas.

He said the early release of the KCPE results will give parents enough time to prepare for admissions in January 2024.

“This will allow parents to prepare the children to join Form One at least the third week of January,” Machogu said during the third Forum for African Women Educationalists Triennial International conference on girl education in Africa.

Schools will open on January 8, 2024, for first term.

The KCPE exam is the last of its kind as curtains fall on the 8-4-4 education system.

This means that primary schools will now be fully operating under the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC).

It comes at the backdrop of the 100 per cent transition drive adopted by former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2019 and retained under the current leadership.

The drive seeks to have all students who sit the KCPE exam proceed to secondary school.

Machogu said only six cases of malpractice were rerecorded.

“KCPE went on very well, there were no cases of cheating, or any kind of malpractice. We had only six cases and this does not really amount to cheating,” the CS noted.

He added that KCSE exams will come to an end on Friday. So far, Machogu said, there have been 147 cases of having unauthorised material in KCSE examination rooms.

He however downplayed the incidents as dismal to dent the integrity of the examination outcome.

“With the number of candidates, we have this year, this means we are 99.9 per cent perfect in ensuring integrity in this year’s KCSE examination,” he said.

The test this year involved some 903,260 candidates and is set to come to an end on Friday with the Physics practicals.

The CS revealed that the conclusion of KCSE will give way to the marking exercise.

Machogu said the enhanced measures adopted in this year’s examinations have been successful.

He says that the new measures including the double collection of examination papers has curbed the problem of early exposure that remained the biggest challenge in securing KCSE exams.