GARISSA,Kenya, Mar, 16 – Day three of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) Examination and the ministry of education said that it continues to be on high alert amidst cases of exam malpractice that marred the opening day of the exercise.
North Eastern regional commissioner James Kianda has issued a stern warning to candidates, supervisors, invigilators and center managers alike against taking part in any illegal dealings.
Garissa county made headlines Monday after a center manager took a photo of an examination paper and sent it to the principal of a school in the area.
He was arrested and is set to be arraigned.
“We are cautioning anybody who is hell-bent to try to cheat in the exam. This exam belongs to all of us, to all Kenyans and to the students who are doing it now,” said Kianda.
While supervising the distribution of examination materials,Kianda said that a multi agency team is working tirelessly to ensure the exercise runs smoothly until the end of the exams.
“It is their future and we cannot allow anybody to derail that opportunity for the students to mess with their future,” he said.
A total of 10,337 boys and 5,397 girls are sitting for this year’s KCSE in 199 centres across the North Eastern region. Additionally, there are 764 boys and 406 girls from the Dadaab refugees writing the exam.
Some 831,015 candidates are sitting for this year’s KCSE exams in the country.
Education Cabinet secretary Professor George Magoha equally told center managers alongside security officers to firmly deal with any attempts to ‘taint’ the examination process with those found culpable arrested and arraigned.
Concerns have been raised in certain parts of the country that candidates are entering examination rooms with huge amounts of money.
“While we are frisking our children before they go to the classrooms, let us ensure they are not holding large amounts of money. We were able to track some students who had unnecessary large amounts of money in their pockets for reasons best know to themselves,” said Magoha.
Students found with huge amounts of money will be demanded to explain the origin of the cash before surrendering it to center managers.
“I am going to advise center managers, invigilators under the hawk eyes of our security agencies that they should frisk students very gently but any unreasonable amount of money found on them must be taken and kept in the center managers officer until after the examinations are complete and the student is going home,” he said.
Police have meanwhile launched investigations against several teachers accused of using their mobile phones to either compromise the exam process or receive money from ‘agents’ outside the school compound.
“I have also asked police to watch the center managers who carry hundreds of thousands of shillings during the examination process…they should actually handcuff such teachers immediately because if you are going to superintend an examination there is no reason you should be having Sh200,000 or even Sh300,000 in cash that is supposed to subvert the purpose of the integrity of the examination,”
The ministry of education has meanwhile rubbished claims that exam packaged have contained inadequate number of exam papers. Magoha termed the incident as un heard of and impossible saying that no mistake could have occurred while accounting for every single examination pair.
According to the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) a total of 831,015 candidates will be sitting for the KCSE 2021 Exams.
The examinations are being administered in 10, 413 examination centres.
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