National exam papers won’t be picked at once to prevent cheating
For this year’s national exam, the exam authority has proposed new security measures to prevent cheating.
Examining officials will no longer select all of the exam papers for the day in the morning, according to The Standard.
The morning papers will only be chosen by the centre managers, who are also the school principals.
The exam administrators will return the morning papers to the container once applicants have finished them while they select the afternoon papers.
The move, according to insiders at the Ministry of Education, is intended to prevent early exposure to afternoon papers.
“They will no longer have so much time with question papers meant for the afternoon exam because they will be kept in the container and only picked minutes to the exam,” a ministry official said.
Exam officials currently have to pick question papers out of bins in their sub-counties; this practise needs to be reviewed.
It will be the responsibility of administrators at schools or testing locations to get the nearby container of questions.
This is due to information that some schools that are close to some containers were unable to choose exams from those storage facilities simply because they do not reside in the sub-county.
Additional containers will be purchased by the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) in order to provide storage space for exams in schools.
According to insiders, this will reduce the time needed to pick and drop exam papers under the new structure.
These are a few of the fresh initiatives being implemented three months before the national exams.
The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) will be taken by around 1.4 million candidates, according to information provided by Knec after the conclusion of test registration. Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) exams will be taken by an additional 1.2 million students in Grade 6.
The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) test will be taken this year by 903,260 students.
Candidates for the KCPE and KPSEA examinations will practise on Friday, October 27, per the Knec 2023 examination schedule.
The three-day tests will commence on Monday, October 30, and they will run concurrently.
On November 1, they will come to an end, making room for the KCSE exam, which will be given from November 2 through 24.
Government agencies are having trouble sleeping because of exam fraud, and they are all playing the “blame game.”
Police are considered the weakest link in the administration of exams, according to officials from the ministry of education.
Additionally, it has been claimed that the Director of Criminal Investigation conducts poor investigations that cannot support prosecution.
The lack of sufficient evidence to support prosecution is held against the investigators by the ODPP and Judiciary.
The Judiciary is also blamed by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) for shielding criminals who operate and establish websites that encourage cheating.
Furthermore, CA has been criticised for taking too long to shut down websites that offered phoney test preparation materials.
Three months out from the examinations, preparations are in full swing despite the finger-pointing.
Officials from the examination have visited the printer to confirm the preparatory procedures.
National exam papers won’t be picked at once to prevent cheating
