TSC to award long-serving KCPE examiners

Education CS Ezekiel Machogu (centre), PS Belio Kipsang (left), and TSC CEO Nancy Macharia during the release of the 2023 KCPE results in Nairobi. [Denish Ochieng,Standard]

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) will award the longest-serving examiners of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) as the country transitions to a new education system.

TSC Chief Executive Nancy Macharia said that they will fete those who have served in marking examinations for more than 30 years.

She made the announcement on Thursday, November 23, during the release of the 2023 KCPE results at the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) headquarters in South B, Nairobi.

Macharia said that TSC is committed to rewarding teachers in line with their performance and also retooling them to effectively deliver the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).

“I wish to usher in all our teachers to our new Curriculum-Based Assessment and encourage them to acquaint themselves with new ways of doing things under CBC,” she said.

Some 234,473 teachers served as invigilators, supervisors, and centre managers and 7,250 teachers acted as examiners.

The Commission CEO also condoled with the family of Dr Sally Mutinda who died on Sunday, November 19, at Nairobi Women’s Hospital, and Ahmed Nur Ismail from Garissa who was struck by a helicopter blade on Tuesday. 

Mutinda was a deputy chief examiner and had served as an examiner for English composition for more than 20 years while Ismail was an outstanding ICT champion in Garissa County.

Education CS Ezekiel Machogu officially released the results and congratulated the candidates for their performance.

A total of 1,415,315 candidates wrote the exams and about 1.2 million candidates sat the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA).

This was the second year that KPSEA and KCPE were being offered at the same time.

KNEC CEO David Njeng’ere said since its inception, the KCPE examination has been offered to over 26,316,037 candidates in the last 39 years.

He said from 2005 to 2008, KCPE was also offered to South Sudan nationals of the Kauda mountains region. In total, 103,779 non-citizens have been certified after sitting KCPE. 

Similarly, about 25,000 candidates with disabilities have sat KCPE examinations over the 39 years.

He also noted that the gender parity of KCPE candidates in 1985 was at 59.2% and 40.8% for male and female candidates respectively.

This ratio increased over the years and from 2013 to 2022 both genders were at par. However, in 2023, gender parity has dropped with female candidates at 48.70 per cent and male candidates at 51.3 per cent respectively.

Njeng’ere thanked the 28,533 KCPE centre managers who ensured that both KCPE and KPSEA examinations and assessments happened in the centres seamlessly, despite the adverse weather conditions that were experienced in some parts of the country.

He also appreciated the 5,692 examiners who marked the English composition, Kiswahili Insha, and Kenyan sign language composition; they were also feted.