Over 1,300 KCSE results cancelled
Examination results for 1,309 candidates, who sat this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), were cancelled after they were found to have been involved in cheating.
The number, however, is lower compared to last year’s 4,519 cases, reflecting an almost 60 per cent drop.
Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha, while releasing the results yesterday, said the cases included use of mobile phones, carrying unauthorised materials to examination rooms and collusion.
“As we scale up these measures in a manner to domicile them in our education traditions, we are also witnessing much more sophisticated and covert forms of cheating, which we are now fully prepared to nip in the bud - now and in the future,” the CS said.
Combined effort
Of all cases, 101 were found with unauthorised materials, 41 less from last year, 47 involved mobile phones, two involved impersonation, 1,158 case involved collision and one case involved a student causing disturbance.
Magoha said close to 100 mobile phones were collected from various examination centres, with 35 mobile phones having been collected from a single centre in Nairobi’s Eastleigh.
In Kisii, the CS said, more than 10 impersonators who had connived with unscrupulous people to produce fake photo albums to give the impression they were genuinely KNEC registered candidates were apprehended.
The ministry also arrested individuals attempting early exposure of examination papers, among others ills before they could execute the irregularities.
Magoha attributed the drop irregularities of cases on the government’s enhanced measures in fighting examination cheating and the combined effort of multiagency government monitoring team, which also involves officers from the Ministry of Interior and Co-ordination of National Government.
Historical trend
The trend has not changed over the years, with fluctuations in number of irregularities.
For 2017, 1,250 KCSE examinations results were cancelled over allegations of cheating after candidates were, among other things, found with mobile phones and unauthorised materials in examination rooms.
In the 2015 KCPE examination, 2,709 out of 927,789 candidates, representing 0.29 per cent of the total number of candidates who sat for the examination, were involved in examination irregularities.
The candidates were found in 111 out of 25,127 examination centres, representing 0.44 per cent of the total number of examination centres.
In 2014, KCPE examination, 0.1per cent of the total number of candidates who sat for the examination in 0.38 per cent of the total examination centres, were involved in examination irregularities.
The highest percentage of examination irregularities in the last ten years was recorded in 2011 when 7,974 (1.03 per cent) of the total candidates who sat for the examination were involved in examination irregularities.
