Here Is Why Teachers Will Not Mark CBC Exams

Teachers have now been stripped of an opportunity to mark the final national examination in primary school, as has been the norm with the former Kenya Certificate for Primary Education

This follows the acquisition of Optical Mark Recognition by the Kenya National Examination Council which electronically scored the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 2021.

Through this move the government is set to save billions of shillings blown in the printing, administering and marking process of exams.

The next Competency Based Curriculum’s Kenya Primary School Education Assessment national exam, according to the Kenya National Examination Council, will only consist of multiple-choice questions that can be quickly marked using the new technology, and teachers won’t be engaged.

The system marks the candidates’ work by capturing their answer sheets using specialized scanning, according to KNEC CBC coordinator Ann Ngatia.T devices operate using a special scanning tool that projects a light beam onto the candidate’s application.

Then, since the marked parts of the paper reflect less light than the blank areas, the contrasting reflection at predetermined positions on a page is utilized to detect the marked areas

A great departure from the previous years where marking took hours, these new machines marked the candidate’s scripts in bunches of 100 and 200 sheets thus taking the shortest time.

This pioneer CBC class of Grade 3, 4, 5, and 6 started sitting for their School Based Assessment examination last week. KNEC only offers online copies of these exams, which schools can download and print to give their students a taste of what the national examination will be like

Without receiving additional compensation, teachers also assist in marking, scoring, recording, and feeding the final marks online with the administration of national exams in their schools.

The final exam for grade six will start on November 28. It will be rehearsal day on November 25, with Mathematics and English following on November 28.