Months of compiling data collected from across the country will soon come to an end as Parliament will finally release a detailed report in a month’s time on what really happened in the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.
After conducting countrywide sittings probing the allegations of widespread cheating, National Assembly’s committee on education chaired by Tinderet MP Julius Melly is now analyzing the responses and findings before tabling a final report.
The report, Melly says, will paint a picture of what went on in the exam rooms that marred the proper administration of the exams.
The looming revelations come hot on the heels of a spirited defense of the integrity of the exams by education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu and the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC), calling on anyone with evidence of exam leakage to report to authorities for investigations.
Speaking at a Mombasa hotel when they appeared before the committee, Machogu said there has been widespread misinformation and false narratives targeting the 2022 KCSE results.
In his responses to questions posed by the committee on whether there were incidents of cheating or other examination malpractices, the CS alleged there was a deliberate, well-orchestrated smear campaign that used fake media accounts to spread falsehoods.
“Facts and figures have been deliberately ignored. Misleading information has been peddled through the mainstream and social media to drive particular narratives and to profile certain schools and counties. Regrettably, this has been done at the expense of hardworking, honest and innocent children,” Machogu said.
Kitutu Masaba MP Clive Gisairo had sought answers on claims of collusion between teachers and candidates, which resulted in some schools performing abnormally well.
While acknowledging that last year’s KCSE results presented a normal curve, Kabondo Kasipul legislator Eve Akinyi noted that going down to details, there are cases of candidates’ scripts with similar responses and identical handwriting.
But in his response, KNEC boss David Njeng’ere explained to the committee that it will be an injustice to measure a performance of a particular candidate based on the performance of the children who sat the exam the previous year; adding that such criteria can only be used to measure a school’s performance.
The KNEC boss reckoned that the only way to measure a candidate’s improvement is by examining closely the entry behaviour and the performance during the entire four years before the final exam.
“Sometimes you will receive a very weak form one class who will struggle all the way to form four. The results will show you. At Starehe Boys you will remember they would go down to number five, and later come back to number one. It all depends on the entry behaviour,” Njeng’ere told the committee.
On the case of similar responses to exam questions, he said: “You cannot punish children for presenting similar responses; such instances could be as a result of responses to closed items that require specific answers”.
He dismissed reports that there was collusion between KNEC officials and centre managers, terming it extremely misleading.
By Hilton Mwabili
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