President Uhuru Kenyatta today morning made a surprise visit to Uhuru Gardens Primary School, where he interacted with pupils sitting the KCPE exam which began on Tuesday, October 31 and wished the candidates success.
The president, accompanied by Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed, arrived at the institution before the start of the morning exam.
Speaking at the school, President Kenyatta promised all examination candidates that national exams will be held in an orderly and transparent manner.
The KCPE examinations enter day two today with candidates expected to sit for their Science paper and later in the day Kiswahili and Insha papers.
The Class 8 pupils sat for the Mathematics, English and Composition papers on Tuesday, in the exam that is scheduled to end tomorrow.
This comes even as over 10 candidates sat their papers in hospital yesterday due to pregnancies and injuries.
The president cheerily hugged and high-fived the candidates before the start of the paper. The KCPE examinations are on their second day.
The President urged students to be patriotic and to respect their parents and teachers.
“Love God, love your country, love your parents and be faithful to all of them including your teachers because they spent a lot of time on you,” said the President.
Amina Mohammed and other top officials in the Education Ministry have been making impromptu visits to supervise the administration of the national exam.
The exam, which commenced amid high political tension in the country, has been going on smoothly in all parts of the country.
President @UKenyatta this morning witnessed the opening of KCPE exam papers at Uhuru Gardens Primary School, Nairobi. The President wished the pupils success and urged them to believe in themselves, be honest and maintain integrity as they write their exams #KCPE2018 pic.twitter.com/gqxGt3QmkP
— State House Kenya (@StateHouseKenya) October 31, 2018
The government procured machines worth Ksh.100 million in 2017 that were to be used in the marking of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination.
Kenyan National Examination Council (KNEC) Chairman Prof. George Magoha said the government had acquired 20 Optical Mark Recognition (OPR) machines that will make the marking process more efficient.
The optical mark recognition technology involves capturing human-marked data from documents.
The answer sheets will be scanned by a device that shines a beam of light on the paper and will detect the marked areas because they reflect less light than the blank parts.
On his way out of the school premises, Uhuru interacted with a crowd of onlookers who had gathered around the gate area.A businessman in the crowd requested to hand over a bunch of bananas to the President.
Uhuru accepted the gift and while the crowd cheered, he shook his hands and exchanged a few words.
“Asante sana. Hii ni ya breakfast (Thanks. I am going to have this for breakfast),” Uhuru stated.
Uhuru then instructed one of his aides to give the man some undisclosed amount of money in appreciation of the gift.
Students were excited to see President Uhuru Kenyatta who was warm around them and assured them that as long as they do their best, all candidates will get a chance to go to secondary school.