Court orders KNEC to release student’s KCSE result

BY WAHOME THUKU

NAIROBI, KENYA: After one year of waiting, a high school leaver can now get his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination result.

The High Court has ordered the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) to release the results to the candidate Mr Ian Mwamuli who sat for the KCSE in 2012.

The result had been withheld since January 2013 over a conflict in names used by the candidate in registering for the examination and those in the records of Knec.

Mwamuli had been named Ian Mutugi Mwangi by his mother soon after birth because then she was unmarried. Later the mother got married to the boy’s biological father and they changed his name to Brian Mutugi Mwai.

The couple later separated and the mother went to live in Britain where she married one Mwamuli and again the boy’s name was officially changed to Ian Mwamuli. The change of name was officially registered in Nairobi.

However when he sat for his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations at Kerugoya Municipality Boarding Primary School in 2008 the candidate used the name Mwai B. Mutugi which was officially captured in the Knec records.

The problem arose because when he registered for the KCSE at St Mary Academy he changed and used the name Ian Mwamuli, prompting the council to withhold the results.

Mwamuli then filed the suit at the High Court in Nairobi on June 7, last year seeking to have the decision by the council to withhold the results overturned. He also asked the court to order the council to release the results. He claimed the two names belonged to one and the same person.

He told the court that despite having presented the official documents for the change of name to the council officials on March 25, last year, the results were not released as promised. He was never given an explanation despite numerous visits to the Knec offices.

He accused the council of acting unlawfully and procedurally by detaining the results since he had not been involved in any examination irregularities of malpractices. The council did not respond to the suit.

High Court judge George Odunga gave him the reprieve over the Christmas holiday by ordering the council to release the results.

The judge acknowledged that the council had powers to withhold and council only the results of a candidate involved in irregularities or malpractices.

“The right to education (under Article 43(1) of the constitution) would make no sense if a person were to sit for examination and fail for no fault of his to know the results of his examination.

Justice Odunga said where authorities were of the view that a candidate’s results ought not to be released to him they were under a Constitutional duty to furnish him or her with written reasons for making such a decision.

He said by failing to release the results to Mwamuli and to give him any explanation for it, the council had failed to carry out its statutory duty under both the Constitution and the law governing the council.