Education Principal Secretary Dr. Belio Kipsang has addressed the ban on social activities in schools during the third term.
In a circular on Wednesday, PS Kipsang maintained that the ban on activities including prayer days for candidates set to sit for national examinations, motivational speeches, sports events and school visits during third term is still on.
Kipsang directed regional, county and sub-county directors to strictly enforce the ban on school activities and visits during third term.
“The purpose of this circular is to ask you to enforce the directive by ensuring that schools do not conduct any of these activities. Please bring the content of these circular to the attention of all schools under your jurisdiction,” said Kipsang.
These measures are intended to curb malpractices ahead of national examinations.
Kipsang Maintains Ban of Social Activities in Schools is on
The ban enforcement means that students will only come home when the third term ends, as it had equally banned half terms and sporting activities.
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Former Cabinet Secretary for Education Fred Matiang’i in May 2016, banned all social activities in the third term including prayer days, visiting, half term breaks, sports, prize-giving ceremonies and annual general meetings in efforts to cut contact between candidates and outsiders.
This was in bid to contain cheating during the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.
Matiang’i said the prayer days during the last academic term are used as avenues for exchanging materials, which are later used by candidates in cheating during KCPE and KCSE examinations.
The directive by PS Kipsang comes after the Ministry of Education released the 2024 academic school calendar for pre-primary, primary, secondary schools.
According to the calendar, the third term for all schools commenced on Monday August 26 and is set to run for nine weeks, concluding on October 25.
After the third term is over, schools will then proceed for the December Holiday from October 26 to January 3 for a period of ten weeks.
2024 National Examinations
Registered candidates are set to sit for the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA), the Kenya Intermediate Level Education Assessment (KILEA) and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).
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The KPSEA examinations are scheduled to take place from October 28 to October 30, 2024, spanning a duration of three days.
For the Special Needs candidates following the Stage-Based Pathway, the KILEA examinations will take place from October 28 to October 31, 2024.
Following KPSEA and KILEA, the KCSE exams will commence on November 4, 2024, and conclude on November 22, 2024, covering a period of three weeks.
The candidates will have their rehearsal on October 18, 2024, with oral, practical and foreign paper on October 22, 2024, to November 1, 2024.
The examination will commence officially on November 4 with English Paper One Functional Writing being the first session and end on November 22, 2024, with Physics paper three, Practical.
A total of 965,501 candidates have registered for the 2024 KCSE examination, compared to the 903,264 candidates who sat the examination in 2023, recording a 6.89 per cent increase.
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