The Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) exams for grade six in Nyamira County administered by Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) have kicked off in earnest.
Nyamira County commissioner Erastus Mbui while presiding over the launch of 2024 examination materials Nyamira South Sub County said all the stakeholders involved in helping KNEC administer this year’s examination are more than ready in ensuring the exercise is executed as planned and credible results are delivered.
“Nyamira County has a total of 17545 KPSEA candidates where 9,268 are boys and 8,277 girls. We further registered a total of 19,088 Kenya Certificate for Secondary Examination (KCSE) candidates and 93 candidates registered for Kenya Intermediate Level Education Assessment (KILEA) where 73 of them are registered in public institution centres,” the commissioner confirmed.
He outlined that the routes to be used by vehicles transporting the examination materials and respective examination centre managers have been clearly mapped out with adequate transport for all managers including the security personnel.
Exam centres which registered less than 30 candidates are being hosted in the neighbouring institutions with adequate facilities complete with examination invigilators.
He said that the Ministry of Education has collaborated with the Judiciary to organize for special courts to expedite any matters of irregularities may be be reported to lower the integrity and credibility of this examination exercise and was hopeful that such defaming reports would not be recorded in Nyamira County.
“Our children have varying capability levels even in life and trying to influence the outcome of their results is irresponsible and criminal because you could be the same consumer of some of the incompetent services they will deliver in future. Ensure that if there is any form of malpractice, it should not emanate from your centre because you will live to regret it,” warned the Commissioner.
The County Director for Education Joshua Kaga advised centre managers to consult immediately if there is a challenge in their examination centre so that it is handled immediately as the exercise was being handled by a multi-agency team and there should therefore be no challenge which should be left unattended.
He advised that no candidate should be chased away from undertaking their exams so long as they were registered because they have a right to do the examination even if they missed out some learning sessions in the course of their study.
He reminded centre managers to ensure they submit a list of authorized personnel including the support to access the examination centres.
Commissioner Mbui assured that security is tightly beefed up in all the 423 examination centres in the county and their mandate clearly spelt out.
He wished all the candidates the best in the examination and was optimistic that Nyamira would deliver credible results.
By Deborah Bochere