Exam cheats in 2015 KCPE rise by 60 per cent

The number of examination irregularities grew 60 per cent to 2,709 as the impact of the teachers' strike and poor supervision witnessed in this year's Standard Eight examination began to be felt.

There were 1,702 candidates caught cheating in the 2014 Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE), which means there were 1,007 more candidates engaged in cheating this year.

The rise in the vice will also put ban of ranking on the spotlight, whose main goal was to reduce intense competition that encouraged exam cheating.

But the current cases are still below the high of 2011 when the country recorded 7,974 cases of cheating, the highest in the past 10 years.

Busia County reported the highest number of candidates found to have cheated in the exams released yesterday, with 261 students missing their results. It was followed by Meru (218), Kakamega (191), Wajir (187) and Homa Bay (156).

Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i said cases of collusion continues to be the most common form of exam malpractice, accounting for 98.7 per cent of the total number of cases reported in the 2015 KCPE exam.

"Despite the occurrence of examination irregularities being relatively low in the KCPE examination, I am saddened to note that head teachers and teachers were mostly responsible for encouraging, abetting and perpetuating examination irregularities during the examination," explained Matiang'i.

The CS said it was difficult to understand how some people entrusted to shape and mentor children of this nation were the very ones at the forefront of enabling cheating in examinations.

He directed that the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) hands over all cases of examination misconduct involving head teachers and teachers to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) for necessary disciplinary action. Those who were caught cheating represented 0.29 per cent of the total number of candidates (927,789) who sat for the exam.

"These candidates were found in 111 out of 25,127 examination centres, representing 0.44 per cent of the total number of centres. During the 2014 KCPE examination, 0.19 per cent of the total number of candidates who sat for the examination in 0.38 per cent of the total examination centres were involved in examination irregularities.

This goes to show there was a slight rise in the percentage of candidates who were involved in irregularities in 2015 KCPE examination compared to 2014," said Matiangi.