Exams team set to train field officials

Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) will on Sunday start training field officers who will oversee the administration of the national examination for Class Eight and Form Four candidates.

Knec acting chief executive Mercy Karogo said the training will run up to Friday across the country before the start of assessment of Music, French, German and Kenya Sign Language candidates for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Examination which will start on October 24.

“Programmes for the dispatch of examination materials are being finalised and county directors will be informed as soon as they are ready,” Ms Karogo told the Sunday Nation.

Those to be trained include head teachers, supervisors, invigilators, security officers and drivers. The council has insisted that those to be contracted must be people of integrity to ensure examinations are free of malpractices.

Last year, a total of 171,646 professionals were contracted by the council.

And, as the training will be going on, teachers’ union leaders will be engaging the Teachers’ Service Commission for talks on salary increases which they have demanded must be concluded before end-month.

Those sitting Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination will start on November 1 and end on November 3 while those sitting Form Four examinations will start on November 7, up to November 30.

More than 1.5 million candidates will sit the examinations with the government announcing tough measures to guard against cheating.

From this year, teachers who have supervised and invigilated national examinations in the same school twice will be deployed to other centres.

TSC has also barred the use of mobile phones and other electronic devices by candidates in examination centres.

“Officers deployed to oversee administration of national examinations must ensure that they guard the conduct of the examinations against all sorts of malpractices so as to enhance credibility and reliability of the results,” said Ms Karogo.

EXAM IRREGULARITIES

The examination will be most guarded following last year’s massive examination irregularities that saw the results for 2,709 KCPE candidates and 5,100 KCSE candidates cancelled.

To take charge of the exercise, school heads will be centre managers and will be required to collect examination materials from sub-county storage facilities and return candidates’ answer scripts to the storage facilities on a daily basis.

Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary- General Wilson Sossion told the Sunday Nation that the union appreciates the role the Ministry of Education Science and Technology is playing to ensure head teachers and principals are directly involved in the fight to eliminate exam cheating and other vices that lead to maladministration of the national examinations.

But Mr Sossion urged the Knec not to put head teachers at the centre of exam administration only to hold them responsible in case of examination malpractices.

“Ordering head teachers and principals to collect national exam materials on a daily basis when the tests start is a clear move of creating scapegoats, and shifting blame when the exams are leaked.

He also raised concerns over the terms of service for head teachers who will be involved in the exercise, saying that the money is too little.

“Principals will earn a flat rate of Sh500 per day for 18 days. This translates to Sh 9,000; while head teachers will be paid for four days at the rate of Sh500 per day. This means each head teacher will receive Sh2,000 at the end of the exam period. Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers has also raised issues with the allowances.