Nyeri Town Member of Parliament Ngunjiri Wambugu on Thursday, July 2, offered a solution to having the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams in 2020.
The MP noted that there was no reason to postpone the secondary and primary school final exams with, in his view, most of the syllabus already covered.
"I have been listening to arguments to reschedule KCPE and KCSE exams due this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. KCPE and KCSE exams are to test what a student has learnt for 8 years, or for 4 years, respectfully.
"The children who are in Standard 8 or Form 4 this year have been in school for 7 years and nearly a term; or 3 years and nearly a term; respectively," he stated.
Wambugu noted that KCPE and KCSE candidates had already covered 22 out of a total of 24 terms (91%); and 10 out of a total of 12 terms (83%); respectively.
He claimed that most schools were usually ahead of schedule in terms of syllabus coverage in the final year to pave way for revision.
According to the MP, if students were not to resume to school in 2020 they already had covered most of what they needed to have learnt by the time they were to sit their respective exams.
He urged the Ministry of Education to set the KCPE and KCSE exams to cover 90% of what the candidates had already covered.
Wambugu was against rearranging the lives of millions of children because, as he argued, of a 10% portion of the study they did not cover due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control.
The legislator, however, failed to indicate how the safety of candidates would be achieved if they were to sit for the exams this year during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ministry of Education Cabinet Secretary Professor George Magoha on Wednesday, July 1, hinted that schools were unlikely to reopen on September 2020.
Magoha insisted that schools could only reopen when the Covid-19 curve was flattened which experts projected to January 2020.
