TSC to adopt biometric validation, capture teacher’s fingerprints to combat exam cheating

NAIROBI,Kenya, May, 10 – Despite continuous attempts to secure and prevent examination irregularities, cases of cheating during national examinations continue to threaten the integrity of the exercise.

In the just released 2020 KCSE examination results, 287 candidates will have their results cancelled after being found to have engaged in various forms of cheating.

Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha on Monday revealed that, “we established beyond doubt that they were involved in examination irregularities.”

During an audit of the entire process, center managers recovered 211 unauthorized materials, 45 mobile phones and one double script.

One case of impersonation was also recorded alongside 29 cases of collusion.

“We are therefore not cancelling examinations for any centre, other than individual candidates of certain centres, where we established beyond doubt that they were involved in examination irregularities,” said Prof. Magoha.

Teachers Service Commission Chief Executive Officer Dr. Nancy Macharia said during the administration of the 2020 KCSE Examination, a number of cases were reported to the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) alleging that some teachers contracted either as centre managers, supervisors or invigilators were involved in an unethical behaviour of opening the examination papers as soon as they are released from the containers.

The accused teachers, it was reported, would screenshot examination questions using their cell phones before disseminating them either to candidates directly or to people hired to answer the questions on behalf of the candidates.

“In one case, it was alleged that a school principal screenshot questions, disseminated and even went ahead to post them on her WhatsApp profile. In yet another case, a senior teacher’s cell phone containing screenshots of questions of a paper was recovered as the cell phone was being transported to a candidate who was sitting the examination at a hospital,” she said.

In a bid to address the increasing cases of examination questions pre-exposure, TSC is now set to launch a transparent process of Biometric Enrollment and Validation of teachers in all public schools.

This will entail enlisting their finger prints, which can then allow for forensic and intelligence-led investigations in cases where examination papers are tampered with, and where cell phones and other gadgets are used to commit examination malpractices.

“The use of Biometric Validation will assist in vindicating innocent teachers from being blamed for offences they did not commit,” she said.

TSC is partnering with the Office of the Data Commissioner on the rollout of the biometric capture of all teachers.

In the future,all teachers joining the TSC will undergo the biometric enrollment before they are admitted into the teacher’s payroll.