News
Cheats plague KCSE
Candidates at Moi Girls High School Eldoret. Candidates such as these will be disheartened by claims that the Form Four exam, has been hit by cheating in some centres. Photo/FILE
In Summary
- A cartel of traders has set up centres from where genuine exam questions are relayed to candidates hours before tests begin, a NATION investigation found
Some of the 330,000 Form Four candidates are accessing genuine exam questions, hours before writing the tests, the Saturday Nation reveals.
A two-week investigation established that a cartel of traders has established centres from where it relays question papers to its agents and candidates up to eight hours before the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam papers begin.
The questions are conveyed to targeted candidates using short text messages and mobile phone calls, according to Saturday Nation findings.
On Wednesday, Saturday Nation obtained 12 questions of Geography Paper 2 – which was scheduled to start at 2pm.
It turned out that all the questions that were in a handwritten format — and read to our contacts on the mobile phone — were all genuine.
The only difference in the questions was that they were written in short form, some in form of statements, which provided a good guide for students to find quick answers. Other questions obtained in advance and which turned out to be genuine were in Kiswahili (Fasihi) and literature.
The Fasihi paper was examined on Wednesday morning.
The cheating appears to have gone largely unnoticed as the exam continues and there have been no reported protests to the police or the exam agency.
But the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) boss, Mr Paul Wasanga, insisted that no exam papers were being leaked.
“As far as the council is concerned, not a single exam question has been leaked,” he said of the Saturday Nation findings.
He declined to comment on specific questions relating to hand-written questions, which turned out to be genuine.
“Those are past papers and once a paper has been done, it becomes public property,” he said. “I am not aware of any exam question that was out before the permitted time,” he said.
Dismissed move
Although the Saturday Nation had reported its advance questions to the police as proof that the documents had been obtained in advance, Mr Wasanga dismissed the move.
“The police (station) is not the council,” he said.
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I feel very bad when I hear about cheating of exams. This was unheard of in our good old days of 7-4-6 education. I think all diaspora members should go back home in 2012, kick out this damn "old niggers" and come back again. Ama vipi jameni!
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Does it make sense for one to get straight 'A's on a golden platter? The institutions or individual teachers who discourage their students to work hard in order to attain a hard worked for results must be brought to spotlight and face the consequences for their unethical conduct. That will be the only way to end examination cheats from thriving.
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If the heads of government ministries and most officials over are stealing millions and yet they are the role models for the young generation, why should it be shocking to see students doing the same? We need an overhaul which can be corrected by the Njiiru approach that seeing honesty and responsibility as the basic starting point manners!!!
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