KCPE test takes off without hitch

The KCPE exam started smoothly across the country on Tuesday.

It proceeded uninterrupted in banditry-prone Baringo County and in Tana River, Kwale and Kilifi counties at the Coast where some people had threatened to disrupt the final primary school tests.

“There was adequate security in the schools, and even in the areas we anticipated challenges, the exam proceeded smoothly,” Kenya National Examinations Council secretary Paul Wasanga said.

A spot check by the Nation in Baringo, where some families had fled their homes due to cattle rustling, showed that candidates sat the exam in all areas.

County education director Hellen Nyang’au and quality assurance officer Felix Muindi, who toured areas recently hit by insecurity in Marigat District, was optimistic that the exam would proceed without incident.

In Coast, no disturbances were reported in schools in perceived Mombasa Republican Council strongholds. The outlawed secessionist group had vowed to disrupt the tests.

“Everything is proceeding smoothly in all schools,” the chairman of the primary school heads association, Mr Fuad Ali told the Nation.

Candidates appealed to the government to expand and improve facilities in several schools that were recently upgraded to national status in the region.

In Nairobi, county education director Abdikadir Hussein said all 844 public and private primary schools wrote their papers without incident.

“The exams started and ended well today in all centres. There were no cases of lateness or insecurity in the schools,” he said.

Barred from sitting

In Kiambu, a candidate from Ikuma Primary in Gatundu South was barred from sitting the exam due to non-registration.

Simon Kagecha Karanja, an orphan, learnt of his fate on Friday, but the school’s headteacher claimed the boy’s grandparents had paid the fees late.

By Benjamin Muindi, Wycliff Kipsang, Oliver Musembi and Rebecca Okwany