Stringent rules: How Knec plans to clampdown on examination cheating
The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has released stringent rules for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations which are due in October.
In the newly released regulations, KNEC has warned that any candidates who commit examination malpractice, such as using written notes or a text book, will have the whole paper cancelled.
“Such a candidate will not be entitled to a result and will be awarded result Y overall,” a notice from KNEC reads in part.
If there is evidence of widespread irregularities in any examination centre, KNEC warned that the examination results for the whole centre will be cancelled.
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Students have also been warned that it will be under exceptional circumstances that they will allowed to sit for a paper if they arrive in the examination room one hour late.
Further, KNEC has also said any misconduct or causing of disturbance in or near the examination room will be treated as an examination irregularity.
Results of last year’s KCSE examinations were marred with claims of massive cheating.
This was after schools in some counties recorded what was perceived to be extraordinarily good performances.
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Case in point was Nyambaria and Mobamba High Schools, both in Nyamira County, which had all their 488 and 388 candidates respectively securing the C+ minimum university entry requirement.
Mobamba High School had a mean score of 5.11 in 2021, which it raised to 9.28 in last year’s exam.
This led the National Assembly to invite public participation on the alleged examinations malpractices.
Through a public notice dated February 2, Clerk of the National Assembly Samuel Njoroge said the Committee on Education had resolved to conduct a public inquiry into the allegations and make recommendations to the House.
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