After the conclusion of KCPE last week, Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) is set to begin tomorrow Monday with 664,585 candidates expected to take the test.
During KCPE exams, several case were reported among them pregnancies, candidates giving birth, exam materials disappearing and a teacher showing up at an exam collection centre while drunk.
The government has set plans to beat all these challenges during the KCSE exams that kicks off tomorrow, but will it manage to beat all of them?
After last week’s incident in Narok County where the KCPE Science and Kiswahili papers disappeared, forcing the field officers to photocopy the materials, the Kenya National Examination Council has warned that it has enhanced security to safeguard the integrity of the tests.
As was the case with KCPE examination, which ended on Thursday, this year’s Form Four test will be tightly monitored by the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) and security agencies to ward off malpractices.
The government is expected to deploy its machinery to seal loopholes in the examinations, including stamping out collusion which led to the cancellation of results for 1,205 candidates last year.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has already indicated that all government agencies will be out to ensure that the examination goes on well.
More than 1,000 special monitors drawn from various ministries and government departments have been lined up for the examination.
However, the major concern is failure by most candidates to answer questions requiring elaborative responses which the Ministry of Education says are inadequately tackled.
Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed is expected to lead the monitoring team across the country in an exercise that ends on November 28.
Centre managers, who are also school head teachers, have also been warned against allowing any examination official to walk into examination rooms with mobile phones.
On Monday, the candidates will start with the mathematics paper while chemistry will be done in the afternoon.
According to Knec, some 664,585 candidates will write their examination in 10,077 centres across the country with 83,711 field officers being involved.
During the examination, there will be 10,078 centre managers, supervisors will be 10,460, invigilators (37,978) security personnel (20,156) while drivers will be 5,039 and their total dues will be Sh705 million.
Ms Mohamed has ordered that examination containers — currently 459 — be opened daily at 6 am.
The council will also be keen to deal with candidates who want to use mobile phones to cheat. The over 600,000 candidates sitting this year’s KCSE examination will be battling for the limited elite courses in top universities in the country.
The candidates will be eyeing close to 100,000 slots in 70 public and private universities in the country while those who will not make the cut are likely to join technical colleges.
Candidates will be keen to post good results at the end of next month in order to be assured of slots at the University of Nairobi, Moi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Kenyatta University which are among the most sought after institutions by students.
This follows last years’ examination massive failure. Will this year’s candidates beat the trend and record better results?