A major cheating ring in this year’s KCSE has hit some secondary schools with just five months to the start of the national examinations.
An expose by the Standard reveals that some school heads have colluded with parents where they are collecting money to buy this year’s national examination material and give it to the candidates before the exams begin in October.
The cartels have now turned to schools since all loopholes at the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) have been sealed.
A government document being studied by security apparatus reveals the cartels are using schools to penetrate the water-tight KNEC system to get access to the examination material. They also say the plan by the cartels is elaborate.
The plan by the cartels is that examination papers would be sneaked out in a highly-covet plan involving invigilators, school heads, and security officers.
Students are also made aware of the leakage plans in the new cheating strategy and they are asked to cooperate in the scheme that is executed professionally throughout the examination period.
Further according to the document under review by security apparatus, some schools are planning to convert staff houses, classrooms or staff offices into ‘command centres’ from where stolen examination papers will be circulated and duplicate made.
“The supervisor together with the principal open (examination) envelope containing papers in the presence of the candidates in the examination room and sneak out one of the papers to the command centre,” reads part of the document as quoted by the Standard.
Subject teachers under the leadership of a dean will work out answers to the questions and give the answers to the students.
“The papers will be photocopied and subject teachers start working out questions as answers are sneaked back to the examination room.”
This year, KNEC registered 663,811 students to sit the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams while it also registered 1,060,787 pupils to sit for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).
KNEC Chairman Prof George Magoha said cartels were frantically trying to expose examination papers in earnest after loopholes were sealed.
However, Magoha warned culprits of dire consequences. “Let me say this: Kenyans must allow us to work. But I can assure you that no examination paper will leak. We shall deliver clean and credible examinations compared to previous years.
“And parents must question any money they are asked to pay without proper explanation,” he added