By Kibichii Chebii
The 2018 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations were managed with great success.
This was done albeit complaints of ‘militarisation’ of the process. The multi-sector approach in guarding the integrity of the examinations by government bore fruit as merchants of examination cheating were dealt a huge blow.
Such actions from government shall help restore trust in Kenya’s education and its evaluation system.
Without cheating in examinations, teachers shall find it easy to manage student discipline. This is because student attention shall be more to teacher class instructions and general guidance towards honest success.
The reliance on external assistance for ‘excellent results ‘ through investment in smart phones and payment of extra school levies to examination cartels by schools, teachers, students and parents had made a teacher’s honest work untenable. This alone became a leading cause of conflict and indiscipline in schools.
Students will now be forced to study hard for recall, comprehension, critical thinking and understanding. Studying for examination only will die.
Teachers will teach the courses objectives in both levels of basic education in a more relaxed and satisfying experience.
Schools shall not compete on which school cheats best but on which one interpreted curriculum best. Further, schools assessment on adherence to quality teaching standards, safety and child right issues will be made easier. It will be easier to pin point lapses in schools based on sound result analysis. Advisory intervention by the Ministry of Education directorate of quality assurance will be more objective especially when considering a drop in examination result performance.
Despite the success in this year’s examination supervision, the Kenyan teacher stands indicted forever. The style of examination management has portrayed teachers as accomplices in the racket of examination cheating. It will be difficult to use teachers for national examination management in future without public mistrust, which has been amplified by this year’s methods of supervision.
To remedy this, The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) in future should engage other entities away from the teaching service.
This can be done through making students register individually for examination at designated centres or schools where students from various schools congregate only to do their examination papers under strict supervision by KNEC appointed agents. These examination centres must not be a student’s domicile school. This will help eradicate the urge to want to help schools achieve higher results by principals, teachers and parents. By doing this, the element of patriotism towards a given school by various stakeholders is completely eliminated.
Apart from relocating students, KNEC and the Ministry of Education should revisit the preparation of test items in national examinations. More thinking skills – comprehension, analysis, synthesis and evaluation, should be included in examination test item choices. Recall questions have made it easier to cheat through prior access of examination material and the smuggling of relevant examination material into the examination rooms.
If these suggestions are actualised, we stand a chance to change the way examination are thought of and done especially as Kenya begins to implement the competence-based curriculum.
Chebii is a Practising teacher.
