Commission acts tough on errant teachers ahead of national exams

A teacher has been sacked and 45 others suspended for up to six months in connection with irregularities in last year’s examinations in one of the worst crackdown against cheating in recent times.

This comes as the 2018 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam starts countrywide Monday morning. 

The 664,585 candidates will start their examinations across the country with Mathematics paper 1 in the morning and Chemistry paper I coming in the afternoon in an exercise that will see security apparatus once again tested after last week’s incident in Narok county in which the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination paper for Kiswahili and science disappeared without trace to date. 

A report by Teachers Service Commission (TSC) seen by Nation reveals that the sacked centre manager has also had his certificate of practice withdrawn meaning, he will not be able to work as a teacher in any school. 

SERVE SUSPENSIONS

A total of 21 teachers will serve suspensions of six months while one teacher has been suspended for five months. Of those suspended for six months, six are principals.

Three others will serve four month-suspensions with four more getting suspended for three months.

Two teachers will serve two-month suspensions and a further six will serve one-month suspensions. Eight teachers have been pardoned over the allegations and will thus walk free.

One teacher has since died. Of the teachers that were under investigation, 29 were from primary schools while the rest were in secondary schools. 

PROMISE KEPT

TSC boss Nancy Macharia in December last year promised that the commission will complete investigations on suspected teachers before the start of this year’s national examinations. 

The Nation learnt that the investigations were completed last month and affected teachers have already been punished. A total of 1,200 KCSE candidates had their results cancelled last year.

A preliminary report by the TSC in September revealed that 26 principals, supervisors and invigilators had been sent on interdiction to fast track disciplinary cases before the examinations last month. 

Six of those interdicted are principals in the secondary schools that accounted for a large part of the 1,022 candidates whose results were cancelled in 2018. 

Four others were supervisors in the schools while 13 were invigilators.

'CREDIBLE EXAMS'

The report, "KCSE Exam Irregularities 2017 Status Report On Teachers’ Interdicted" dated June 20 2018, said affected teachers had been served with their interdiction letters through the TSC County Directors. 

The latest TSC report did not provide details on who among the affected teachers had either been dismissed or suspended in the latest punishment. 

Education Cabinet Secretary Amina reiterated government’s commitment to delivering credible examinations.

She has since directed that release of material from the container must be duly documented. 

She added that monitoring officers must go to the container before it is opened so as to ascertain that it was locked and that the security officers are present on a 24-hours basis.

The monitors will also be required to counter-check the examination being issued to make sure that it is the proper paper for the day.

'QUALITY CONTROL'

During the examination, there will be 10,078 centre managers, supervisors will be 10,460, invigilators (37,978) security personnel (20,156) while drivers will be 5,039 and their total dues will be Sh705 million.

“Supervisors, monitors and sub-county directors must ensure that every centre manager verifies the number of scripts issued, the number of candidates registered per centre, the number of extra scripts and the time of collection from the container. 

“This will provide data that can be used to verify any issues of shortage or missing scripts arising from the centres. This exercise therefore must be rigorous and performed with due attention and consideration,” said the CS.