Kenya – National Examination Council moves To personalize Kenya’s Secondary Education Certificate To Curb Cheating

By Lisbeth Micheni, Kenya

The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has made a move to personalize its Secondary Education certificate to curb cheating.

KNEC’sl Chief executive Officer, David Njengere said the personalization process will “cure” impersonation, examination malpractices among other prevailing concerns.

He said each paper will feature the name, index number and school with respect to the candidate it is intended for.

As a result, unlike in the past, Kenya National Examination Council will not avail extra question papers and photocopying of question papers remains prohibited.

Njengere added that personalization will help track individuals involved in cheating rather than penalizing the entire school or examination centers.

“At the end of each paper, the part containing the candidates’ details will be torn off and packed separately to guard against the examiners identifying the candidates during marking,” said Njengere.

The personalization will also disallow candidates to sit for subjects they did not register for, unlike in the past when KNEC allowed this in what it called “under-protest” candidates.

This will also prevent unregistered candidates from sitting for the exams because Kenya National Examination Council will have no extra question papers.

“What we are saying is that we shall personalize the examination papers so that each candidate will have their details already printed. This means that in case of malpractices, we shall ask the candidate why they allowed their paper to be used by someone else,” said Njengere.

Njengere said that private candidates will sit for theory papers at the county headquarters, unlike in the past when they sat for exams at the sub-counties.

The CEO also said that they have added 41 additional containers in exam collection centers to enhance double collection capacity and stem early exposure.

He also explained that KNEC will pack examination papers in separate cartons for morning and afternoon sessions, with the afternoon papers remaining sealed during the initial collection.

The practice of collecting papers twice daily, introduced in 2023, aims to prevent any premature access to the exams.

Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education will commence on October 22 and conclude on November 22 while the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) will begin on October 28 and end on November 20.

The Kenya Intermediate Level Education Assessment (KILEA) examinations are slated for between October 28 and October 31, 2024.

A total of 965,501 candidates have registered for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination, recording a 6.89 per cent increase in candidature compared to the 903,264 candidates who sat the examination in 2023.

Similarly, a total of 1,313,913 candidates have registered for the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA), recording a 2.38 percent increase from the 1,283,339 candidates presented in 2023.

As such, KNEC will be administering National examination and assessments to a total of 2,279,397 candidates countrywide.