Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has assured the public of utmost credibility in this year’s national examinations that will kick-off later this month.
The CS said that adequate measures have been put in place to ensure that no cases of cheating will be witnessed noting that nobody would access the examination materials beforehand.
Speaking in Nanyuki town on Friday where he attended a public engagement forum by the Presidential Working Party on Education Reforms that is seeking views on the Competence Based Curriculum, Mr Machogu further stated that security arrangements and manning of exams were in place.
He added that authorities were on high alert and on the lookout for individuals purporting to be selling leaked examination papers warning that anyone caught shall be prosecuted.
“Recently, you saw three men who were arrested as they were selling bogus examination papers to Kenyans, note that those are not genuine and citizens should report such characters to authorities if they encounter them,” the CS said.
He assured students and their parents that the examination materials were intact and what will be brought to examination centres will be credible and genuine.
At the same time, the CS warned school heads against sending home students with fee arrears. He noted that the government was keen on ensuring that all children get an education and therefore would not wish to see students out of class due to lack of school fees.
He further warned head teachers against charging parents extra fees outside the government guidelines. “Any principal who will be found charging extra levies to students outside the stipulated guidelines will be dismissed,” he warned.
The team from the presidential working party on education was led by Reverend Professor Stephen Mbugua and is seeking to get views from the public about the CBC curriculum and its affordability, quality of teaching and learning materials, cost of education and transition of grade six learners to junior secondary schools among others.
By Martin Munyi
