Bound to fail? Why CS Amina’s tough exam rules never worked

KCSE results of 3,427 candidates from 44 schools have been cancelled for cheating despite tough rules during the time of the exam.

They were among 53 schools whose results had been withheld pending investigations into suspected cheating. The other 1,275 candidates and nine schools were cleared.

This means the results of 4,702 candidates out of 660,204 that sat the exams had been flagged for possible cheating.

Kenya National Examination Council Chairman George Magoha during the education stakeholder conference at Kenya School of Government in Nairobi on October 15,2018.
Photo/Enos Teche.

Yesterday, Kenya National Examinations Council boss George Magoha said the “painful but necessary” cancellation followed thorough and unbiased investigations to ensure credible and verifiable findings.

“The council applied international best practices in the identification of collusion in the examination by scrutinizing patterns of similar long responses from candidates,” he said.

The cancellation now brings to 3,527 the number of cheating cases in last year’s KCSE exams after 100 others were cancelled on December 21 during the release of the results.

The number is almost thrice the 1,205 results that were canceled in 2017 despite last year’s exams having been touted as the strictest in Kenya’s history.

The affected schools are from 16 counties. These are Machakos, Meru, Isiolo, Turkana, West Pokot, Kericho, Narok, Elgeyo Marakwet, Bungoma, Kisumu, Kisii, Homa Bay, Migori Garissa, Mandera and Wajir.

Speaking while releasing the findings at Knec headquarters in Nairobi, Magoha said affected candidates are free to register for this year’s KCSE before the February 15 deadline.

Magoha said cheating was through collusion. He said candidates gave identical errors in calculations, identical wording in vocabulary or grammar and identical corrections by candidates in the same exam room.

“Other forms of collusion included cases where a group of candidates had identical readings in science practicals, answers copied from text books and notes or answers were prepared outside the examination room,” Magoha said.

Other candidates gave identical paragraphs in essay questions or answers in practical exams that matched that of their teachers.

The findings, Magoha said, indicted teachers for most of the irregularities while centre managers, supervisors, invigilators and TSC field officers on the ground were found culpable for negligence.

 

 

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