Did KNEC Ignore Crucial Steps in 2016 KCSE?

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has come up with a detailed report on some of the steps that KNEC overlooked in the process of marking the 2016 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) thus leading to a big number of students scoring below C+.

According to the report dubbed “The Glaring Shortcomings”, the critical process which is normally used to moderate the results was not done. It further disclosed that a uniform grading system was adopted for all subjects against the normal practice where each subject used to have its own grading system different from others.

Some of the areas that were analyzed on the process used in marking of the examinations include the following:

1. The examiners did not have the chance to interact with the questions before going to the marking centres. Usually, they are always familiarized with the questions before the marking process kicked off.
2. The marking scheme was not subjected to discussion and adoption by examiners before marking commenced. It was imposed on the markers. In the past, examiners were to go through the marking schemes and make changes where possible before embarking on marking the examinations
3. The marking scheme was made deliberately for students to fail. This was argued out that even in cases where questions had earlier been repeated from previous KCSE past papers, the marking differed sharply leading to failure of students.
4. Instead of examiners being allowed to fill in the mark sheet provided by KNEC so as to carry out the counter-checking process, they mark were taken directly to KNEC so as to be fed on the system.
5. After examinations marking is over in December, the markers often go back around January to mark stray scripts. Stray scripts are papers, which were never marked for certain logistical reasons such as mix up in packaging. This time round, it was not clear when stray scripts were marked.
6. The award ceremony, which is presided over by the chief examiner was not followed, this is the moderation exercise where the performance of students across the country is checked then propose on grading system so as to normalize the grades.
7. Apart from the massive errors in the computation of marks, the report discloses that it is clear that no cross-checking was done.
8. The report also says that schools that have been performing well will be labeled as cheats without evidence being put forward.

The question here is whether the outlined mistakes will be revised so that students can get their required marks. Out of the 574,125 candidates who sat the examinations, some 295,463 students scored grade D and below. Of these, 33,399 scored E, 149,929 attained grade D– while 112,135 posted grade D. Only 141 candidates scored the coveted grade A with some 4,645 candidates scoring grade A– while 10,975 attained B+. These results were one of its kind which has never been experienced in the past years.

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