The Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) on Thursday, February 4 announced that one in every three Kenyans holds a fake academic document.
KNQA Director-General, Dr. Juma Mukhwana, warned that they were planning to weed out all holders of fake academic certificates and prosecute them for the offense of uttering a false document.
Mukhwana said yesterday that the authority is also working with learning institutions to ensure learners are admitted in programmes they qualify to study.
“We are working with universities, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and foreign institutions to ensure the country has genuine and quality qualifications,” said Mukhwana.
Mukhwana was speaking during a meeting with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati.
Also present at the meeting was the IEBC Commissioner Prof Abdi Guliye, the acting Chief Executive Officer Marjan Hussein and acting Deputy Commission Secretary Obadia Keitany.
KNQA was having a consultative meeting on the partnership with IEBC to see how the two agencies can ensure genuine academic qualifications can be used to ensure political aspirants do not become leaders through the backdoor.
“We are here to seek collaboration so that any candidate seeking elective positions has their academic certificates vetted. We have the required expertise to handle the vetting of the academic documents,” said KNQA Chairman, Dr. Kilemi Mwiria.
He also noted that the authority has developed a general database for all academic qualifications. The database is configured to contain information from all sectors of the education and training system.
Mwiria further observed that the authority is determined to restore sanity and order in the education sector and that would only be achieved through genuine qualifications.
The former assistant minister remarked that elected leaders need to lead by example, by only presenting genuine certificates to the electoral body. Chebukati welcomed the partnership saying the agency would speed the academic verification using the database.
“We will be happy to work together to address the issue of fake academic qualifications by candidates seeking elective positions,” said Chebukati.
The IEBC has been finding it hard to handle applications from politicians claiming to be having a university degree and other qualifications but the claims cannot be substantiated.
