By Obegi Malack
Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) has indicated that the upcoming Competency Based Curriculum’s (CBC) Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) national examination will be marked using new technology and teachers will not be contacted.
KNEC had acquired Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) machines which will electronically score the Grade 6 exams. The machine marks the candidates’ work by capturing their answer sheets using specialized scanning.
The exams are purely in multiple-choice questions that will easily be marked using the machines.
The new machines will mark the candidate’s scripts in bunches of 100 and 200 sheets thus taking the shortest time unlike previous years where the marking took a longer time.
The machines electronically scored the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) in 2021.
The introduction of the machines will see the government save billions of shillings allocated in the printing, administering and marking process of exams.
KNEC has been providing online copies that schools download and print for their learners to have a feel of what the national examination will be. The teachers then mark the exams and feed the final results online.
The grade six learners will sit for their final test starting 28th to 30th November 2022. They will sit for five subjects Mathematics, English, Kiswahili, Integrated Science and Creative Art and Social Studies.
KNEC CBC Coordinator Ann Ngatia says the exam will be a multiple choice covering five papers.
“We will combine sciences and technology and will cover Home science, Agriculture and Physical health while CASS will combine Art and Craft, Music, Social studies and Religious education (CRE, IRE and HRE),” she said.
Primary school results will be determined by the School Based Assessment (SBA)which is done every year in upper primary classes and the five-subject Summative National Examination.
The SBA will be done in form of projects, practical, portfolios and oral assessments. This allows learners to demonstrate what they have learnt. The implementation will be done by teachers with guidance from KNEC.
