Anyone who photographs and shares a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) paper can be traced almost immediately, Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Julius Ogamba has warned, citing security markers built into every script.
Speaking in Nairobi on Wednesday during a monitoring tour of State House Girls Senior School, Ogamba told candidates, invigilators and security officers that the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) now numbers each paper and fits it with coded identifiers that hide the owner's name. Those markers, he said, point investigators to the exact candidate, room and centre behind any leaked image.
That, in his view, closes the door on denials. A leaked picture cannot be disowned, because the paper carries the evidence of where it came from, and the person who took it can be identified with it.
The warning extends to the adults in the room. Ogamba said examination officials who let a candidate take a phone into the hall would answer to the law, and that one lapse could expose everyone supervising that room. He wondered aloud how a phone could get past officers who are supposed to frisk candidates at the door, adding that a failure of that kind suggested someone had helped.
Detectives are also on hand. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has attached a team to KNEC, which Ogamba said would allow suspects to be picked up without delay. Candidates and officials can no longer count on shielding themselves behind others, he said.
He insisted that nobody stands outside the rules designed to protect the integrity of the exams. Even government leaders, he noted, leave their phones aside while papers are being sat, as KNEC requires.
Ogamba ended with a blunt message to anyone weighing a shortcut. "We are watching," he said, "Big Brother is watching."
Reader Discussion (0)
Sign in to comment