The illustrious career of George Magoha, a consummate public servant, saw him serve as the Kenya National Examinations (KNEC) chairman and Cabinet Secretary for Education, where he sought to eradicate exam malpractices.
Magoha served as the KNEC Chairman from 2016 until 2019 before his appointment to the cabinet as CS Education.
His boldness, strict and no-nonsense character led to his appointment as KNEC chair with direct responsibility of restoring sanity at the body accused of failing to tame exam irregularities.
Equally, he fought examination cartels minting millions of shillings from candidates and school heads in exam leakages.
Magoha would continue his exam cheating reforms as Cabinet Minister of Education, where he sought to clean up the mess in the education sector.
He also sought to restrain examination centre managers, who, he alleged, registered extra candidates.
At the time, CS, Magoha revealed that the ministry was aware that the cartels were working in cahoots with “a clique of rogue teachers and examination centre managers” who had hatched a scheme to leak the examination papers during the opening of exam containers.
Parents were also cautioned over abetting exam cheating and warned of severe consequences if found to have colluded with exam officials, teachers and students.
The CS would illustrate his point using Nyatike in Migori County, where teachers colluded with an exam official to aid cheating.
“In Nyatike, for example, all our officers went to bed with the teachers there because they had an open exam. All the officials were looking away so that the schools were able to do eight exams as open books. It must not happen this year,” Magoha remarked.
Magoha equally called out legislators over the academic qualifications of candidates eyeing elective seats in the August 9, 2022, elections.
“I, Magoha, son of Magoha, will not fight to say I am not what I am not, and am not targeting anybody. It is very shameful that people who want to be our leaders, and they are many of them, are fighting to prove that," he remarked.
