Tough new measures crafted to guard against exam cheating

Tough new measures have been crafted to guard against cheating in national examinations that will begin in November.

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

The Teachers Service Commission and the Kenya National Examinations Council said the guidelines must be adhered to strictly.

In a joint circular to all the commission’s county directors, dated September 9, commission chief executive Nancy Macharia and her exams council counterpart Mercy Karogo said guidelines requiring personnel not to be deployed to the same examination centres for more than two consecutive examination periods had not been adhered to in the past.

“An analysis of the deployment data for the past four years reveals that some of the supervisors and invigilators had been deployed to the same examination centres for more than two consecutive years,” they said.

More than 130,000 teachers will work as supervisors and invigilators during the national exams.

Ms Macharia and Ms Karogo further said: “Familiarity with such centres can easily compromise integrity in the administration of examinations and, therefore, must be avoided and new officers should be deployed this year.”

They also directed county directors to engage teachers of high integrity, who are employed by the commission.

The exam council has also directed that such staff must be vetted and should preferably be heads of departments and senior teachers.

Teachers who will be recruited will be provided with security identification badges. One supervisor will be appointed per examination centre with a minimum of 15 candidates. In the case of large examination centres with over 200 candidates, a second supervisor would be in charge of his or her own rooms and a group of invigilators.