The national examinations kicked off smoothly in Coast as the Regional Director of Education Luka Kangogo gave assurance that everything was in place for any possible eventuality.
The assurance comes in the wake of insecurity challenges posed by the Al Shabaab insurgents in Lamu County where parents and teachers had raised concerns over their security during the exercise.
Speaking in Mombasa after presiding over the distribution of examination papers, Kangogo said security forces had restored calm in the restive parts of Lamu.
“Lamu is peaceful. In the last two or three weeks, the areas have been conducive and we don’t expect any insecurity issue now that we have not had any incident in the recent past,” he said.
He however said the security committee was on high alert in case of any unforeseen challenges to possibly relocate affected centres to safer zones to ensure that the papers were no affected by the changes of the venues.
“Coast region is set. We are well prepared for these exams irrespective of the rain that is pouring. We are not in any way worried. We are looking forward as a region to have well-coordinated management and administration of this year’s national exams,” said Kangogo adding that they don’t anticipate abnormal rains that will affect examinations.
The Regional Education Director said if the rains disrupt the examinations, they will request choppers from the Ministry of Education headquarters to ferry examination papers in areas that may not be accessible by road.
The Ministry of Education is working closely with the Ministry of Interior, and government vehicles from both the national and county governments have been assigned to ferry exams in all the centres 2019 KCPE and 2472 KPSEA centers.
The Regional Education Director thanked all the stakeholders who have been involved in the preparation of the examinations.
For KCPE and KPSEA, the Coast region has 53 examination containers serving 2019 KCPE centres and 2472 KPSEA centres. The region has 125, 296 and 137,945 candidates for KCPE and KPSEA respectively.
Mombasa County Director of Education James Gachungi urged all examination officials to perform their roles diligently. Mombasa has 24,000 KCPE and 25,000 KPSEA candidates.
On his part, County Commissioner Abdirisack Jaldesa urged the examinations administrators to dedicate their efforts to the exams by upholding integrity for the exams to be incident-free.
County Deputy Commissioner (DCC) Ms. Milka Kariuki said, “the multiagency security team has put in place measures to ensure safety in all the 815 exam centers in the 12 Sub Counties,” said Kariuki. 82,279 KCPE and KPSEA candidates are sitting for the exams.
The administrator cautioned the exam Invigilators from using or carrying phones in the examination rooms noting that each person will be held responsible for any exam rules violation.
This will be the final KCPE examination for the class eight students in the 8-4-4 system as the country gears for the 2-6-6-3 Competency-Based Curriculum.
This year the number of candidates increased by 7,708 as compared to those who sat for their KPSEA and KCPE national examinations in November 2022 representing a 10 percent increase.
The number of examination centers also increased from 804 in 2022 to 814 in 2023.
By Sadik Hassan
