New exam rules lift burden on students

Students wishing to resit national examinations can now do so soon after the results are released.

The announcement by the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) on Monday, will be warmly received by students who may miss the examinations due to illness or other reasons and those whose results are cancelled because of cheating or other irregularities.

Currently, students have to wait for a year before they can re-sit the examinations.

“We want to have a situation where we can provide examinations for those doing re-takes so they can sit the tests in February or March,” said Dr Joseph Kivilu, the Knec chief executive officer, during the launch of the exam body’s strategic plan at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD).

He also announced that the council would reduce the time taken to remark the examinations to two months from the date of release. Remarking currently takes 90 days or more.

PRINTING PRESS

Dr Kivulu announced that the council had acquired a printing press for certificates to save on costs because the service is outsourced abroad.

The press would also enable the council to correct errors on certificates and release them quickly.

Dr Kivilu said the council was holding certificates of candidates who sat for their KCSE exam in 2011 because of errors.

“When we get certificates that need correction, we normally dispatch them for rectification to those providing printing services abroad,” he said, and announced plans to have all the examination materials, which are currently prepared abroad, printed in Kenya.

He said they expected the KCPE and KCSE exam candidature to grow close to 1.1 million and 856,000, respectively by the year 2020.

“This calls for an increase in resources and technological advancement in order to completely meet the growth.”

Dr Kivilu said the council was determined to ensure that the security of the examinations was guaranteed.

In Summary