KNEC’s First Test as Parents Head To Court over Exam Results

89 parents whose children sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) in 2016 have gone to court in what they termed as the Kenya National Examination Council’s inconsistency in marking and tallying of the examination results.

The parents whose children sat for KCPE at Nyali Primary School in Mombasa want the court to compel the Kenya National Examination Council, KNEC, to produce all the marked scripts for cross checking and confirmation.

In a petition filed in the High Court in Mombasa, the parents say that KNEC has contravened the fundamental rights and freedom that are secured under articles 35, 47, 50 (1), 53 (1) (b), 53 (2) and 55 (a) of the Kenyan Constitution as well as in the matter of the Basic Education Act number 123 of the year 2013 sections 4,18, 30 and 31.

The petition says that “the results also did not conform with the individual child abilities when set against the monthly test results of the year 2016 by the said pupils which ranged from 363.48, 392, 399, 391, 379, 393, 387, 400.36, 396.04 and 372, for the period between January 2016 to December 2016” and that there is possible evidence that the results were not genuine.

In the petition, the parents have raised the following issues against the Kenyan National Examination Council, KNEC:

• That from the sample verification exercise done, the Petitioners (parents) strongly believe that the optical machine did not capture some answers from the candidates or someone maliciously messed up with the optical machine hence this affected the integrity of the tallying process after examination had been carried with a lot of transparency and accountability.

N/B: An optical machine is an instrument used to mark multiple choices examination. Parents say that this machine did not capture some of the answers and that it appears that someone had messed up with it.

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1. That the marking and release of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education Examination 2016 was done in a haste compared to the other years and this may account for the various errors of commission and omission in tabulating and tallying of the results.

Cabinet Secretary for Education Dr. Fred Matiang’i shocked the entire nation when he released the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) on the 1st of December, almost a month earlier than the usual time that his predecessors used to.

These, among other things, have put the examination body on the spotlight hence raising the following issues:

1. Was the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, KCPE, marked in a haste?
2. Was the optical machine, meant for the marking of the answer scripts functioning properly?
3. Did someone, within KNEC, maliciously mess up with the optical machine with an intend to interfere with the results?
4. What has KNEC done to address the concerns of the parents and the eyebrows being raised by Kenyans?

The Kenyan National Examination Council has remained mute concerning the issue on how the KCPE was marked. During the 2016 KCPE examinations, all the pupils got their results and there were no results that were cancelled as a results of examination malpractice.

A big twist in this petition is that the form one selections have already been made. Students joining form one are expected to start doing so from the 9th of January 2017 in a selection process that was done electronically. Different from other years, however, this year, parents did not complain on the process used to select those joining form one.

The concern among many Kenyans now is that if the concerns raised by the 89 parents are found to be credible and true, what will KNEC do? What about the form one selection that has already been made? Will the reforms that KNEC had been seen to be introducing be seen as efforts in futile?

In another move that shocked the country, the Ministry of Education released the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, KCSE, for 2016, two months earlier than it was expected. The results were as shocking as the time they were released. There were only 141 As in the whole country, a drop of more than 90 percent from the previous years with only 15 percent of the candidates qualifying for public university slots. Given that the marking of KCSE is 99 percent manual and with the time frame that it was marked and released, are their reasons to believe that it was also marked in a haste and that there was little time to counter check for any anomalies?

Whichever angle this case will take, this is the KNEC’s first test to prove the reforms taking place within its structures.

Related: KCSE Results Out, Another Surprise for 2016 Candidates