The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is quietly dismantling one of the most entrenched practices in Kenyan schools: the routine purchase of commercial printer assessments.
For decades, schools have relied on externally produced exam booklets, often marketed as “KNEC-standard”, to evaluate learners.
While these materials offered convenience, they also created dependency, limited teacher agency, and, in many cases, failed to align fully with the spirit of Competency-Based Education (CBC). In the age of AI, this model is increasingly obsolete.
Artificial intelligence now provides schools with the capacity to design high-quality, customized, and KNEC-compliant competency-based assessments internally. This is not merely a technological upgrade; it is a pedagogical shift that restores assessment to its rightful place as a professional responsibility of the teacher.
Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) under CBE is fundamentally different from traditional exam-oriented testing. It emphasizes demonstration of skills, application of knowledge, values, and attitudes in authentic contexts. Commercial printer assessments, by their nature, tend to standardize and mass-produce content. They often lean toward recall-based questions because such items are easier to generate at scale. This creates a mismatch: a competency-based curriculum assessed using largely knowledge-based tools.
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AI disrupts this mismatch. With properly framed prompts, teachers can generate assessment tasks that target specific competencies, performance indicators, and learning outcomes. For instance, instead of a generic comprehension passage followed by predictable questions, AI can generate contextually relevant texts tied to learners’ environments, agriculture in Gatundu, urban livelihoods in Nairobi, or climate issues in Turkana. It can then produce layered questions that test interpretation, evaluation, creativity, and problem-solving.
Moreover, AI allows for differentiation, a critical principle in CBC. In a typical classroom, learner abilities vary widely. Commercial assessments assume uniformity; AI enables personalization. A teacher can instantly generate multiple versions of an assessment targeting the same competency but calibrated at different difficulty levels. This ensures inclusivity without compromising standards.
Alignment with KNEC expectations is another area where AI proves invaluable. The Kenya National Examinations Council emphasizes clear mapping between learning outcomes, assessment tasks, and scoring rubrics. AI can assist teachers in constructing structured rubrics that define performance levels, from emerging to exceeding expectations. It can also help in phrasing task instructions in ways that are precise, measurable, and competency-focused.
Critically, AI does not replace teacher judgment; it augments it. The teacher remains the curriculum interpreter, the assessor, and the quality controller. AI simply accelerates the technical aspects of assessment design—drafting questions, suggesting marking schemes, and ensuring coherence. This frees up the teacher to focus on higher-order responsibilities such as analyzing learner performance, providing feedback, and adjusting instruction.
There is also a significant economic argument. Schools spend substantial amounts annually on commercial assessment materials. In resource-constrained environments, this expenditure is not trivial. Redirecting these funds toward digital infrastructure, teacher training, or learning resources would yield far greater educational returns. AI tools, many of which are accessible at low or no cost, provide a sustainable alternative.
And here lies an unavoidable truth: commercial printer exams will soon face the same fate that faced post offices. Once indispensable for communication, post offices have been steadily eclipsed by faster, more adaptive digital alternatives. In the same way, static, mass-produced exam booklets are being outpaced by dynamic, responsive AI-generated assessments. What was once a necessity is quickly becoming a relic.
However, the transition is not without challenges. First, there is the issue of digital literacy. Not all teachers are currently equipped to use AI effectively. Poorly constructed prompts will yield poor assessments. This necessitates deliberate professional development focused on AI integration in pedagogy. Teachers must learn how to “speak” to AI—how to specify competencies, structure tasks, and refine outputs.
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Second, there is the risk of over-reliance. If teachers uncritically adopt AI-generated content without interrogation, the quality of assessment may suffer. AI outputs must always be reviewed, contextualized, and, where necessary, modified. Professional accountability cannot be outsourced to a machine.
Third, schools must address issues of academic integrity and data privacy. As AI becomes more embedded in assessment processes, clear guidelines must be established to ensure ethical use. Learner data should be protected, and assessment tasks should remain secure to preserve their validity.
Despite these challenges, the direction is clear. The future of assessment is not in outsourced booklets but in intelligent, teacher-driven design supported by AI. This shift aligns with the broader vision of CBC: developing reflective practitioners who can respond to the needs of their learners and contexts.
For school leaders, the implication is strategic. Investment should move away from bulk purchasing of printed assessments toward building internal capacity. Departments should collaborate to create assessment banks powered by AI, continuously refined through classroom experience. Quality assurance mechanisms—such as peer review of assessment tasks—should be strengthened to maintain standards.
Ultimately, the question is not whether AI can replace commercial printer assessments; it is whether schools are willing to reclaim ownership of assessment. AI provides the tools, but the transformation depends on mindset. When teachers embrace their role as designers of learning and assessment, supported by intelligent systems, the result is more authentic, more relevant, and more effective evaluation of learners.
In this era of AI, buying assessments is no longer a necessity. It is a choice—and increasingly, an unjustifiable one.
By Ashford Kimani
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