The Presidential Working Party on Education Reform (PWPER) committee, on Tuesday, August 1, recommended that the Kenya National Exam Council (KNEC) prints national exams.
If adopted, the Ministry of Education will end its long-standing tradition of printing the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in the United Kingdom.
The task force, established to improve the efficiency of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CB), expressed confidence in KNEC, stating that it had proven capable of curbing exam leakages and improving credibility.
"Develop the capacity of KNEC to print National Assessments in Kenya," the committee, headed by University of Nairobi professor, Raphael Munavu, recommended in the report handed over to President William Ruto at State House, Nairobi.
Other than printing exams in Kenya, the committee advised KNEC to improve its portal to allow teachers to upload scores without the risk of compromises.
"In this regard, the stakeholders recommended that external assessment by the KNEC should carry more weight in determining the overall performance of learners," read part of the report.
The task force, however, advocated for an audit of the site after discovering that some teachers had a tendency to upload fake scores. Some schools were said to have been unable to access the portal due to various factors, including inadequate ICT infrastructure and poor internet connectivity.
Additionally, stakeholders recommended the decentralisation of KNEC services to the counties for effective monitoring of Competency Based Assessment (CBA) and capacity building of teachers on matters related to assessment.
Other Recommendations
The task force urged the government to prioritise investing in foundational learning to avert future crises in education.
"Basic literacy, numeracy and transferable skills such as social and emotional skills ensure essential blocks for acquiring higher order skills," the Raphael Munavu-led committee advised.
It further asked the Ministry of Education to abolish the categorisation of public Secondary schools as National, Extra-county, County and Sub-county and adopt a categorization based on career pathways for Senior schools.
Education CS Ezekiel Machogu and his Interior counterpart, Kithure Kindiki, were also advised to integrate registration of births and to capture students in tertiary and vocational institutions as well as school-age learners who are out of school after renaming the Education Management Information System (EMIS) to Kenya Education Management Information System (KEMIS).
EMIS is a system for the collection, integration, processing, maintenance and dissemination of data and information and to support decision-making, formulation and analysis of policies.
The Parliament was further encouraged to enact the proposed Tertiary Education Placement and Funding Bill to amalgamate the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), the Universities Funding Board (UFB) and the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Fund to enhance efficiency in credits issued to students.
