A report tabled on Friday, March 31, by education sector players before the National Assembly Committee on Education alleged that private schools and private exam centres lead in exam cheating.
The revelations were made during the committee’s last day of public hearings on exam malpractice in the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.
5 of the schools mentioned included: Light Academy, Dagoretti, Asilaam Academy, Lang’ata, Starehe Private Centre, Makadara Private Centre, and Embakasi Private Centre.
Nairobi County examination officials and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) presented their reports before the committee.
Akelo Misori, the KUPPET Secretary General, appraised the committee on irregular jumps in school mean scores, skewed distribution of performance scores, and examiners' testimonies.
“Normally, schools improve by an average mean score of 1.0, but in cases that require scientific investigation, some schools improve by 5.0,” Misori noted.
To back his point, he revealed that a school like Mobamba High School had a mean score of 6.2 out of 12 in 2021, while in 2022, they got 9.28 out of 12.
Another school, St. Paul’s Igonga, had 5.89 out of 12 in 2021 then 10.2 out of 12 in 2022.
“Statistically, the performance of the 2022 KCSE exam was a skewed distribution, where few students had exemplary performance, while a large group of students performed poorly,” Misori added.
The 2022 KCSE had 881,416 candidates. A small percentage attained C+ and above, earning them direct entry into universities.
The vast majority failed to attain enough points to enter university. Those who scored D- were 359,828.
Nairobi county education officials showed that the use of mobile phones in examination rooms was rampant in private schools and exam centres.
Students in at least 5 schools were mentioned in the report where students were caught with mobile phones.
Other centres had unauthorised materials inside the exam room while some private exam centres had cases of impersonation of students who presented fake documents to write exams for others.
An uproar was sparked in January 2023, when Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu announced the 2022 KCSE results.
Some of the issues cited were skewed improvements, with some schools that posted low results the past year recording very high results in 2022.
