Education CS George Magoha has announced new rules that will be applied immediately to curb the cases of exam cheating in the ongoing KCSE examinations across the country.
Through a statement, the CS said that some individuals are using their mobile phones to take photos of examination questions, and sneaking them out of the examination centres.
He said that the questions are being taken to ‘hired’ people who are ready to answer the questions before smuggling the answers to candidates.
Following the recent cases of cheating, the CS has announced new measures to the centre managers, and examination officials.
The new rules are:
- That all school gates must be kept wide open throughout the day’s examination hours to allow ease of monitoring of all processes.
- That security officers must sit at positions where they have a full view of the examination materials for the second daily paper as the morning paper is underway.
- That supervisors and invigilators must not take any time off from the examination rooms for any other activity while examinations are in progress
- The centre managers must not allow any unauthorised teacher(s) or staff to hang around the precincts of the school compounds during the examination season. Magoha said only teachers handling practical subjects will be allowed in examination centres during the days the subjects are taken.
- Mobile phones will not be allowed at the examination centre except one for the centre manager, and one for the security officer, both of which should be kept at the centre manager’s office in case of any emergency.
The CS said that a team comprising of DCI detectives and officials from his ministry exposed the syndicate and some have been arrested.
The detectives attached to the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) launched the investigations one week ago, and have so far arrested the four who are college students in at least four institutions of higher learning.
The main suspect Gideon Kibet Tanui alias Evans Kipruto, an Information Technology student at Baringo Technical College, was picked from his rented room next to the college on March 15, at around 10:30 am, while he was busy administering English paper 2 and Chemistry paper 1, to students of Silibwet and Sitoito secondary schools in Molo, Via his what’s app group with a following of 70 members.
The suspect, DCI says, was dishing out examination papers at a paltry Sh500 per paper.
He was discovered to be a member of two fraudulent examination Telegram groups with over 17,000 followers.
