National exam papers won't be picked at once to prevent cheating

After candidates complete the morning paper, the examination officials will return them to the container as they pick the afternoon papers.

Insiders at the Ministry of Education told The Standard that the move is aimed at preventing early exposure to afternoon papers.

"They will no longer have so much time with question papers meant for the afternoon because they will be kept in the container and only picked minutes to the exam," said a ministry official.

Also to be reviewed is the current practice that requires examination officials to pick question papers from containers within their sub-counties.

Officials of schools or examination centres will be required to pick question papers from the nearest container.

This is because it emerged that some schools, situated near some containers, have not been able to pick examinations from those storage facilities just because they do not fall within the sub-county.

The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) will procure additional containers to bring examinations storage facilities to schools.

This, insiders said, will cut down on the time taken to pick and drop the examination papers under the new arrangement.

These are some of the new measures being rolled out three months to the national examinations.

Data released by Knec at the close of examinations registration shows that some 1.4 million candidates will sit Kenya Certificate of primary Education (KCPE). Another 1.2 million Grade Six learners will write the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA).

And some 903,260 will sit this year's Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.

According to the Knec 2023 examination timetable, KCPE KPSEA examination candidates will rehearse on Friday October 27.

The three-day exams will run concurrently and are scheduled to start on Monday October 30.

They will end on Wednesday November 1, paving way for the KCSE exam which will be administered from November 2-24.

Exam malpractice is giving government agencies sleepless nights, with each engaging in blame game.

Education ministry officials have blamed the police as the weakest links in examination administration.

The Director of Criminal Investigation has also been accused of doing shoddy investigations that cannot sustain prosecution.

The ODPP and Judiciary blame the investigators for not providing enough evidence to warrant prosecution.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) also points fingers at the Judiciary for protecting criminals who create and run sites that are used to abet cheating.

And CA has been faulted for not acting quick to pull down sites used to sell fake examination material.

Despite the blame games, preparations are in top gear three month to the tests.

Examination officials have visited the printer to verify the preparation processes.