A sitting between school heads and the National Assembly’s Committee on Education has laid bare the issues that lead to cheating and malpractice in national examinations.
On Monday, March 20, the committee led by Tinderet MP Julius Melly was told that pressure on principals to post impressive results in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) is may have led to cheating in the 2022 examinations.
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The school heads say they are pressured by parents and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to post impressive results with some of the principals stating that they received a show cause letters from the employer when learners flopped in the national examinations.
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In a statement addressed to the National Assembly committee by the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association (KESSHA) Nakuru County Chairperson Kamu Manyara, instances of school heads being frogmarched out of the institutions by politicians and parents due to poor performance piles pressure on principals leading to cheating in national examinations.
“This is what pushes headteachers to do everything possible, including getting involved in exam malpractice to post good results,” Manyara told the committee.
The committee was also told that the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) and the general public are also to be blamed for cheating.
“We can’t run away from the fact that there was massive cheating in 2022. It happened. We shall be unfair to the Kenyan child if we run away from this fact. KNEC is the elephant in the room. It is not doing its work as expected,” Manyara added.
The committee was told that some officials from KNEC collude with teachers by handing them the exam materials way before the exams begin.
“Bad doctors and engineers who graduate by manipulating our systems will only leave us suffering. We must clear the mess in our education system,” Lugari MP Nabii Nabwera said.