Nairobi, Meru top in exam cheating

The number of students involved in exam irregularities increased by 70 per cent in the 2015 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), Education Cabinet Secretaries Fred Matiang’i has said.

The CS stated that of those involved in the cases, majority of the centres are in Nairobi, Meru and Makueni with Isiolo the only county that had no single case of irregularities.

In his speech during the official announcement of KCSE results, Matiang’i further noted that there will no blanket punishments on schools whose students have been involved in exams cheating saying only the individual students will have their results cancelled.

He further stated that the Education Ministry will work with Interior Ministry to investigate and take action against those responsible for leakage of last year’s exams.

The CS further stated that only a third of the students who sat for the 2015 KCSE exam attained university entry qualifications.

“We can do better. We need to know why performance is poor. Is it the curriculum? Is it issues of teachers’ absenteeism or issues of availability of text materials?” posed Matiang’i.

The KCSE 2015 results show the number of candidates with a mean grade of A dipped from over 3,000 in 2014 to 2,600 in 2015.

The ten subjects which registered a decline in performance included Mathematics alternative B, History and government, CRE, IRE, Electricity, drawing & design, computer studies, Arabic, Kenyan Sign language and Business Studies.

Thirteen subjects recorded a mean of 50 per cent and below; these included English, Kiswahili, Mathematics alternative A and B, Biology, Physics and Chemistry.

The Education CS has formed an inter-agency team to look into the performance of candidates for the last three years.