Schools say results have anomalies

By Robert Wanyonyi

Bungoma, Kenya: The release of the 2013 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results was dodged with controversy in a school in Bungoma County after candidates received marks for subjects they did not sit for.

At the same time, it has also emerged that Sangalo Central Academy that scored 388 points Tuesday was not ranked among the leading public schools.

Mr Josephat Serem, the chairman of the school management committee, said staff wondered why the institution was not named among the top five public schools.

“Sangalo Central Academy is a public school supported by the Government through Free Primary Education (FPE) fund, with staff from Teachers Service Commission (TSC),” said Serem.

The official claimed that failure by Education ministry to rank the school among public institutions may demoralise pupils and teachers.

In Bungoma, teachers and pupils at Nabongo Junior Academy were at a loss as to what may have led to the candidates receiving marks for papers they were not examined on.

The school produced the best pupil in the county, Beautar Mike Wang’unda, who scored  432 marks.

“I don’t understand how all my candidates were listed as having sat the sign language paper yet we don’t offer the subject as we don’t have children with special needs here.  I will follow up the matter with the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) because according to me, this constitutes an illegality,” said Dorothy Saiya, the director of Nabongo Junior Academy.

She also complained that all the results received after sending the candidates’ names and index numbers to the SMS short-code provided by Knec returned wrong replies by allocating zero marks to the Kiswahili language. The reply  had the KSL initials, which she later learnt stand for Kenya Sign Language.

But she clarified that at no time has the school ever offered such a subject since its inception.

Saiya said the mix-up has demoralised the pupils, majority of whom were expecting to score good marks in the exam.

Dent credibility

“We are demanding for proper answers from the examinations council regarding these anomalies because if such things are left to go on, they might end up denting the credibility of national examinations in this country.  We have invested heavily in the sector and very soon we may see  no need to prepare our students to sit the exams if they will end up frustrated,” warned Saiya.

Contacted on phone over the matter, Bungoma County Director of Education Daniel Mosibei also conceded having spotted several anomalies, but added that they will be rectified.

“It’s true that several complaints have been raised regarding the discrepancies in the released results, but there’s no cause for alarm because we have mechanisms that will address the matter,” said Mosibei.

He advised those with complaints to forward them to his office for urgent action.