Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General, Wilson Sossion, has threatened to order teachers in public schools to boycott invigilating ongoing national exams due to the rampant cheating cases.
In a statement sent to newsrooms, Mr Sossion urged Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi to cancel and reschedule Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) because of the obvious mismanagement and dishonesty in the examinations.
The Secretary General acknowledged that the five-week teachers strike may have contributed to the current crisis that have seen exam papers being sold for as low as Sh1,000, but accused Prof Kaimenyi of living in self-denial over the matter.
“Many students were inadequately prepared for the examinations after the mishandling of a dispute with teachers led to the unfortunate historic strike by the teachers and it is obvious that this could be one of the reasons behind the increased cases of examination irregularities being reported in our nation,” read the statement in part.
Mr Sossion further attributed the massive iregularities to policies implemented by Prof Kaimenyi while in office thus pleaded for his immediate removal from the docket.
“Several new policies including the scrapping of examination ranking in our country have been introduced to address the issue of examination cheating…but examination cheating has intensified over the last three years under Prof. Kaimenyi’s watch,” he said.
On Wednesday, 15 students were apprehended in Changamwe with Kiswahili papers. Another lot comprising of teachers and students had earlier on been arrested in various schools across the country and charged for examination irregularities.
