Kudos, Knec, but centre managers are weakest link

Today is the end of this year’s Kenya Certificate Secondary School Examination (KCSE) examination.

The exam is crucial since its outcome will be used to place candidates to various courses in tertiary institutions—universities and colleges. Furthermore, the results will, as in the past, be used to promote teachers and heads of institutions who will post exemplary performance.

Because of these and other factors, KCSE remains a high-stakes exam in the country. It is a do-or-die event that the pressure to post good grades in it is enormous.

A number of attempts at cheating in the 2023 KCSE exam were reported. However, the Kenya National Examinations Council, (Knec) should be applauded for the extra efforts it employed to safeguard the integrity of the test.

This year, the council acted not only with speed but utmost boldness in nipping in the bud any attempt by unscrupulous officials and other crooks who tried to engage in exam malpractices. Even the "big fish" were not spared. The media reports about the suspension of the principal of Nyambaria High School—which topped last year’s exam—as a centre manager is a case in point.

The strategy, by the council, to collect the test papers twice a day was a game changer in this year’s KCSE exam. The plan worked wonders by eliminating early exposure of the mid-morning exam to unauthorised parties.

In addition, the Knec ensured that supervisors were not stationed in one school for more than a week. This helped in breaking any ‘cordial’ relationship that would develop between centre managers and their supervisors; who would otherwise collude to facilitate cheating.

Further, the measure by the council to increase the number of containers where test papers were secured helped to bring the storage facilities closer to the exam centres. This proved beneficial to the council and it’s agents by reducing the time taken to collect the exam papers, thereby minimising any attempt at leaking the exam before the stipulated time.

Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that the council did all that it could to secure the integrity of the exam, there were numerous reports about the arrest of teachers and suspension of some centre managers for aiding cheating.

It is an open secret that school principals, who are also the centre managers, have vested interests in the outcome of the exam. Therefore, in order to bolster the integrity of the KCSE in the future, the council should consider assigning centre managers roles outside their work stations. This is because, so far, they have proven to be the weakest link in the administration of the exam.

- Mr Chumo is an educational research, evaluation and assessment expert and physics teacher. [email protected].