The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has reportedly deregistered 342,916 KCPE and 28,713 KCSE candidates for breaching registration procedure.
Reports indicate that parents and head teachers in schools countrywide might have colluded to use false birth papers to register candidates for this year’s examinations according to a KNEC report cited by The Standard.
KNEC Chief Executive Officer Mercy Karogo revealed that the anomalies were detected during a validation exercise by the agency.
“We have listed several cases where schools manipulated the birth registration data to register candidates,” Dr Karogo stated.
Karogo added that the council was shocked by the behavior of some school heads and parents.
“Some just entered zeros while others entered some funny digits. We detected all these and cancelled their registrations,” she revealed.
During the registration process, schools were expected to enter details of correct birth certificates and legitimate photographs of candidates, accurate candidates’ names, school codes, and subjects.
Registration had started on January 2, before KNEC asked parents, teachers, and candidates to verify their details between February 16 and 22.
It, however, emerged that most parents, candidates and school heads did not conduct the verification exercise.
A report tabled in Parliament last week by outgoing Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed listed duplication of birth certificate numbers and typing errors of birth entry numbers as some of the challenges the ministry had faced on data management.
KNEC is also investigating reports that some examination centres used fake data to register students to avoid being stripped off their centre status. The centres are expected to have a minimum number of candidates for the examinations body to retain them.
The council declared that the affected candidates will not be allowed to sit the examinations later this year unless proper records are supplied and those behind the fraud are punished.
