All systems go as KCPE exam kicks off

• Officials assure of counter-measures against flooding and insecurity

The government was on Monday evening engaged in last-minute efforts to ensure a smooth start to this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination.

Both the ministries of Education and Special Programmes were optimistic that the 727,000 candidates would have little or nothing to worry about, even as non-governmental organisations and education officials braced themselves for three tough days of El-Niño vagaries.

In Mombasa, the government set up two separate centres for candidates from flood-hit areas in the district.

Hired helicopter

Coast Provincial Director of Education Tom Majani said 910 candidates in Malindi, Garsen and Magarini districts had been affected by floods and had been moved to safer centres for their exam.

“We have hired a helicopter to ferry the exam from the Malindi airstrip to regions that have been cut off by the floods,” he said.

In the Tana Delta, Red Cross is working with the local authorities to ferry exam papers to remote centres, some of which were merged to ease the logistical pressure.

Tana River District Education Officer Abdallah Ahmed Ali told the Daily Nation yesterday that rehearsals for the start of this morning’s tests had been done without a hitch.

In Nairobi, Kenya National Examinations Council corporate affairs head Ken Ramani said the government had put in place contingency measures to deal with any emergencies, especially in flood–prone areas.

He asked candidates, examination officials and teachers to strictly observe the examination code of conduct to ensure a smooth run of the examination.

The code of conduct will, however, not be followed in some schools in Central Province, where internally displaced pupils have been allowed to write their answers on their question sheets instead of the mandatory answer sheets.

The 55 candidates of the Solio Settlement Scheme in Kieni East District had registered for the exam before moving with their landless parents to the camp, where UN children’s agency, Unicef, erected some temporary sheds to act as their classrooms.

In the North Rift where 3,800 candidates are expected to sit the exam, security agents were on high alert yesterday ahead of Monday’s first paper.

“We expect no hitches during the exam period,” Wareng district education officer Dorothy Otieno told the Daily Nation, adding: “Adequate security and transport facilities have been put in place.”

The same was expected in Burnt Forest, even though IDP pupils complained that the relocation of their exam centres had put a strain on their finances because they have to commute daily to class.

Nyanza Provincial Director of Education Geoffrey Cherongis said the province had recorded a three per cent increase in KCPE enrolment this year, and attributed the increase to the free primary education programme.

— Reported by Anthony Kitimo, Sammy Cheboi, Galgalo Bocha, Muchiri Karanja, George Munene, Barnabas Bii, Abiud Ochieng’ and Elisha Otieno