Narok County Women Representative Rebecca Tonkei has strongly opposed the presence of armed police officers invigilating national examinations.
Tonkei, who also serves on the National Committee on Education, described the presence of armed police in exam rooms as intimidating and traumatic for candidates.
She was speaking at Maasai Girls Secondary School in Narok South at the official launch of a Ksh14 million dormitory.
Reflecting on the challenges she had faced during her own school years, the leader said that the presence of armed officers in the exam room had made it difficult for her as she sat her papers.
‘’I just want to warn the Kenya National Examination Council, invigilation does not mean terrorising students and teachers. This thing happened last year and we are not going to allow you to terrorise our candidates,’’ she said.
‘’When you are sent to a school like this to invigilate and supervise, I request that we give our students a humble time to sit for the exams,’’ she continued.
Mostly, during National Exams, armed police officers are deployed to different schools to bolster security and guard against any unauthorized access to exam materials and curb widespread cheating, especially in high-stakes exams like KCSE.
Officers' escort exam papers from storage containers to schools and back, ensuring they weren’t tampered with or stolen, then stay in the exam rooms during the exam period.
The woman representative is now opposing the presence of armed police officers, saying that their guns terrorise students.
This is not the first time that calls have been made for armed police officers to leave exam rooms. In 2024, the same calls were made and the Education PS at the time, Belio Kipsang, suggested that the government was keen to remove police officers from national examination duties, as had previously been the norm.
However, a year later, this has not happened, and the female MP argues that it is having a negative impact on students.
“This is the most opportune time to change how we administer assessments. I'll be very surprised to see police officers in assessment rooms this year. It's time to let our children be children,” Kipsang stated at the time.
