Who Pockets Millions Earned From Checking National Results?

The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results were announced yesterday on 18th December 2019.

As is the norm, Kenyans especially candidates who sat the KCSE 2019, their parents, guardians, and friends rushed to send their index to 20076 to get their results.

Due to the expected traffic, the messages detailing the results would take longer than usual which sending the message with different phones.

Each message, (index number) KCSE sent costs 25 shillings and given the anxiety that comes with wanting to know the results, then it’s more likely that for each candidate at least 2 messages were sent.

Money Made in KCPE 2019

In KCPE 2019, a total of 1,088,986 candidates sat the national exam.

If for every KCPE candidate sent a message, then that is

1,088,986 *25=27,224,650

If for every KCPE 2019 candidate two messages were sent then that is:

27,224,650 *2=54,449,300

Question is, who pocketed the estimated over 54 million shillings earned from parents and candidates who were eager to receive their results going by the that the Government still has to release funds for the release.

READ: Top 10 Best Secondary Schools in KCSE 2019 Results

Money Made in Checking the KCSE 2019 Results

After four years of hard work and a month of sitting exams the anxiety experience in waiting for the results cannot be understated.

The message seems to take forever and your friends, family or yourself resend the code hoping one reply comes through faster, well, in your anxiety KNEC reaps big time.

In the KCSE 2019, 669,745 candidates sat the exams and as has become the norm, Knec conveniently provided the SMS code where parents or candidates could find out their results in real-time.

The shortcode costing an exorbitant and unexplained 25 shillings that is outrightly exploitive.

A normal SMS costs as affordable as 1 shilling, corporate SMS’s cost an average of 10 shillings, so why 25 shillings per SMS to receive results??

669,745 candidates*25 shillings=16, 743,625

Over 16 million shillings, for a single Message, what if it’s sent twice?

16,743,625*2=33,487,250

Total Money Made in Checking National Results in 2019%

54,449,300(KCPE) +33,487,250(KCSE) =87,936,550(close to a billion!)

Results were initially received Free Of Charge by simply being collected from the respective schools, today, thanks to technology, it has become a money minting business.

The other option of receiving results is the online portal where one enters their exam credentials on the KNEC portal and are issued their results.

The Knec portal however conveniently fails immediately the results are officially released as it cannot handle heavy traffic making it strategically unreliable.

Leaving Kenyans with only one option, the exorbitant SMS code.