2015 KCSE Candidates Could Resit Exams

Members of Parliament on Tuesday hit Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matang’i with two extreme recommendations in regard to the course of action following the rampant cheating in national examination.

A section of Members of the Departmental Committee on Education, proposed that the Education Ministry either cancels results for all candidates in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) or to immediately reverse cancelled results for the 5,101 students.

Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa and his Budalang'i counterpart Ababu Namwamba argued that it would have been better to cancel the entire results and have the candidates retake the examinations rather than “victimising” the 5,101.

“He has not given us what was the clear basis for the cancellation of the results. Those 5,000 are the victims but in the real sense, there is no criteria on which their results were cancelled,” said Mr Wamalwa while referring to explanations given by CS Matiang’i.

The lawmakers suggested that a special supplementary national examination be done in June, this year, to regain the credibility of the 2015 KCSE exercise.

Mr Namwamba added that more needed to be done rather than just sending Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) top officials home.

“There is no justification why the minister can proceed to make decisions and to do what he is calling ... drastic surgery of KNEC based on the recommendations of the same discredited KNEC. The minister must go beyond the mere scratching of the surface. He must go right to the bone marrow,” said Namwamba.

Mr Namwamba asserted that following the bad record of exam irregularities, the Committee had been informed that foreign universities were beginning to question the credibility of KCSE certificates.

Read Also: How KCSE Leakage Earned Mandera Teacher Sh1.5 Million

The Education committee led by Murang’a Women Representative Sabina Chege, had taken Matiang’i to task over what the Government was doing concerning the damning leakage witnessed last year. 

“We are very optimistic as a committee about the nine who were arrested on Thursday. But we are also hoping that there are several other people (who will be arrested), be it headteachers or students,” said Ms Chege.

The Education Minister told the committee that a special team would scrutinise the cancelled results and handle the appeals of affected candidates.

Meanwhile, KNEC Boss Joseph Kivilu and eight other officials have since been suspended to allow investigations into what occasioned the national exam leakage.

Read Also: 9 KNEC Officials Kicked Out of Office

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