By Roy Hezron
The National Parents’ Association (NPA) has come out strongly to defend the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results released recently by Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu, rubbishing widespread claims that the examinations were marred by irregularities.
The Association’s National Chairman David Silas Obuhatsa told Education News that the strict management of the examination could not allow any cheating.
“As an association of parents we believe in what the government released through the Ministry of Education (MoE) as the correct and official KCSE results. We have not received any official complaints from our officers on the ground that there was examination cheating,” said Obuhatsa.
“We all witnessed the strictness of examination administering that could not have opened any cheating loopholes. These are mere media propaganda of the day which Kenyans are used to,” he added.
The same was echoed by the Association’s Secretary General Eskimos Kobia, who stated that as parents they are satisfied with the outcome and that it is only the MoE and Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) that can tell whether there was cheating or not.
“Only social media said the exams had irregularities. Parents are only to celebrate the results. The CS said there was no cheating. Being Secretary General, I agree with him,” Kobia told Education News.
Speaking during the release of 2022 KCSE at the KNEC Mitihani House in Nairobi on January 20, 2023, Machogu said that there were no irregularities during the 2022 KCSE examination and the administration of the examination was clean.
The CS said the MoE devised various mechanisms to curb the vice.
“We did come up with a mechanism that accountability was transferred to personal levels. We said the Centre Manager will be personally accountable for any irregularities. We designed a form for security personnel to confirm how things went,” Machogu said.
A total of 881,416 candidates sat the 2022 KCSE examination compared to 826,807 in 2021, an increase of 54,609 (6.60 per cent).
There were 1,146 (0.13 per cent) candidates who obtained an overall Grade A compared to 1,138 (0.14 per cent) in 2021; while the number of candidates with the minimum university entry qualification of Grade C+ rose to 173,345 (19.03 per cent) in 2022 compared to 145,776 (17.55 per cent) in 2021.
Public varsities self-reliance
In relation to the increasing number of students who scored direct university entry grades, Obuhatsa said that despite public universities facing a number of challenges at the moment, they are confident they will admit all the qualified students.
He, however, challenged public universities to device mechanisms of self-reliance instead of waiting for government support.
“Prof. Olive Mugenda is an example of someone who should be fully involved in university boards of management, seeing what she did at Kenyatta University. Such universities like Egerton and Nairobi with all that expansive land need to plan well to exploit their available resources to reduce some of their crises,” said Obuhatsa.
Kobia on his part stated that if the government raised the cut off points from the minimum grade C+, many who worked hard to attain it will miss out on university education.
“We as parents recommend open learning so that more students can be accommodated in our universities,” said Kobia.
The Association has, however, decried the delays in releasing funds by the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) to deserving students, urging the government to urgently think of a solution to the problem and find a quick alternative.
Obuhatsa stated that in future, NPA will work with the government to set up a National Parents’ Association Public Education Foundation (NPAPEF) through which all poor students will be supported.
He observed that if such a foundation was established and managed by parents themselves, some of the financial crises student face will be a thing of the past.
“If the country had such a foundation, funds like those given by HELB, NG- CDF, Wings to Fly and what well-wishers may bring on board would go through the foundation to benefit thousands of students. We have suggested this to the taskforce and we hope it will be considered,” said Obuhatsa.
