Knec begins hiring officers to manage national exams

The Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) has started recruiting officials to manage this year’s examinations, scheduled to start in October.

The council has also lined up activities to ensure that the examinations will run smoothly.

A preparedness report by the Acting Chief Executive Officer Mercy Karogo shows that the recruitment of invigilators and supervisors started on May 21 and will end by June 30.

The report further shows that 409 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and 4,789 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) new examiners were trained in April.

“The list of the newly-trained examiners has been forwarded to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for vetting and to ascertain their qualifications, employment, registration, work station and discipline status,” she said.

EXAMINERS INCREASED

The number of examiners and assessors has been increased to address the shortages experienced during last year’s exam marking and to replace those who will be retiring this year.

Last year, Knec recruited 233,638 professionals to manage the exams. Some of them will be retiring this year.

The council also plans to start inspection of newly registered centres this month and conduct a meeting for top security officers from the eight regions in September and October.

This year, 1,002 KCPE  and 474 KCSE new examination centres have been registered. The inspection will target 30 per cent of the centres with  emphasis on private schools.

Currently, Knec is conducting preparations on the number of field officers to be used during the field administration of the examinations.

They include centre managers, supervisors, invigilators, drivers and security personnel.

Vetting of teachers identified as supervisors and invigilators will be communicated in July.

REGISTER ONLINE

“All the officers to be engaged will be expected to register online in the newly developed Online Contracted Professionals Application System,” she said.

Ms Karogo also said head teachers will have a personal responsibility to ensure that examinations in their centres are managed according to the  laid-down regulations.

Knec will also start briefing and sensitising all the centre managers, invigilators and supervisors in the sub-counties.

The sensitisation forums will be done in when schools have closed in line with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) policy that teachers should be engaged only when schools are closed.

Sub county directors have also been directed to file assessment reports on school floods. Ms Karogo said, so far, 66 Sub Counties have filed reports.

The reports show that there was destruction of school facilities, roads, flooding of classrooms and school compounds.

The Ministry of Education has since promised to repair all schools ahead of the national exams.

DESTROYED BY FLOODS

“It has come to our attention that several schools where destroyed by floods, therefore, all schools will be repaired,” said Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed.

In this year’s examination a total of 1,060703 will sit for KCPE among them 531548 are boys and 529, 155 are girls in 27,161 exam centres.

A further, 664,585 candidates among them, 341,089 boys and 323,498 girls have been registered from 10,077 examination centres to sit for KCSE

Of these, A total 2,481 candidates KCPE and 1,511 KCSE candidates with Special Needs  have been registered.

The students with special needs are those with Low vision, blind, deaf and physically challenged.

GIVEN EXTRA TIME

The candidates with poor vision will be provided with large print question papers, the blind will be provided with braille question papers, the deaf will be provided with Kenya Sign Language (KSL) question papers instead of Kiswahili while the physically challenged will be given extra time during the examinations and any other assistance deemed necessary as per assessment and doctor’s report.

Ms Karogo said, in order to ensure that the candidates are adequately assisted, the heads of the institutions must provide KNEC with the correct information during registration of the candidates.

“Knec will carry out assessment of these candidates so as to ensure provision of suitable and adequate assistance during the administration of the examinations,” she said.