Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 20- Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has defended the integrity of the ongoing Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) Examination.
Magoha said no examination paper has leaked out, crediting tough safeguard measures by police and Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) officials.
Magoha said there are measures in place that require all security officers manning the examinations to sit at positions where they have a “full view of the examination materials daily.”
He spoke even as detectives arrested masterminds of examination paper leaks in parts of Rift Valley where they were found distributing examination papers on social media networks like Whatsapp and Telegram.
It has not been confirmed yet if the sample papers the suspects have been distributing are genuine and if they compromised the ongoing examination papers, but Magoha has confirmed that such rackets are rampant in the past five years and that they had managed to dismantle them.
He has ordered Supervisors and invigilators not to take any time off from the examination rooms for any other activity while examinations are in progress.
“Centre managers must not allow any unauthorized teacher(s) or staff to hang around the precincts of the school compounds during the examination season. Only teachers handling practical subjects will be allowed in examination centres during the days the subjects are taken,” he said.
Following the recent reports of mobile phones found in some examination centers, Magoha said that no mobile phone must be allowed at the examination centre except one for the centre manager, and one for the security officer.
According to Magoha, the phones should be kept at the centre manager’s office in case of any emergency.
“I urge all the officers contracted from across government departments to do all they can to ensure we arrest the challenge of early exposure of examination questions to ensure we deliver a credible examination,” he added.
The Education CS further maintained that no single examination paper has been leaked or circulated before the opening of the container since the examination started on Monday last week.
He pointed out that so far, the examination process has gone on smoothly saying that they have managed to strictly comply with the schedule of distributing examination materials from containers to all centres.
“All the papers have been delivered to every examination centre with all the unique KNEC security features intact. I repeat: No examination paper has been leaked, none will,” Magoha said.
He added, “However, having sealed all the loopholes of leaking examinations, a few scrupulous people have over the last five years devised a new dirty trick of opening examination packages a few minutes before the start time, in what we call the “early exposure”.
The Education CS said that the individuals in question operate by using mobile phones to take photographs of a few or all the examination questions before sneaking them out of the examination centres to waiting hired people who thereafter tackle the questions before smuggling the “answers” back to the candidates.
“Unfortunately, days of such people have come to an end. A combined team of DCI investigators and Ministry of Education officials has exposed this racket and have arrested masterminds of the early exposure schemes. They will face the full force of the law,” he said.
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