1.7m students to sit KCPE and KCSE in 2018

Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) has released timetable for national examinations which will start in November and that will be sat by 1.7 million students.

Knec chief executive Mercy Karogo revealed that 1,060,787 candidates registered for Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

A total of 531,665 boys and 529,122 girls registered for the examination that will be conducted in 27,172 centres.

“In Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) 663,811 candidates registered with 340,719 being boys and 323,092 girls,” said Ms Karogo on Tuesday at St Georges during a meeting with education stakeholders that was presided over by the Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed.

The KCSE examination will be conducted in 10,075 centres across the country.

Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang told the National Assembly’s Education Committee last month that Sh4 billion would be used to pay exam fees for candidates in both public and private schools.

Last year, 1.5 million candidates registered for the examinations.

In the timetable, practicals will run from October 22 to 26 and the subjects will be French (Oral and Braille), German (Oral), Arabic (Oral) and Kenyan Sign Language (Practical Signing Skills). Rehearsal will be on November 2 with theory papers starting on November 5 and ending on November 28.

Ms Karogo said instructions to schools for practical papers will be opened on October 8. For KCPE, the rehearsals will be on October 29 while the exam will be begin from October 30 to November 1. The candidates will start with mathematics and end with social studies.

The registration of the examinations started in February and was extended to March 7 following network problems in some parts of the country.

Ms Karogo said candidates who wish to withdraw from the examination should notify the council May 31.

“A candidate who commits an examination irregularity in any paper will have the results for the whole subject cancelled. Such a candidate will not be entitled to a result and will be awarded result “Y” overall,” said the acting CEO.

She added that if there is evidence of wide-spread irregularities in any examination centre, the examination results for the whole centre will be cancelled.

Last year, Knec cancelled KCSE examinations results of 1,205 candidates alleged to have been involved cheating.

The students were from 9 out of 10 exam centres that reported cheating in 2017 exams.