Nairobi — Certificates for Form Four and Standard Eight school leavers will from next year have the candidate's photograph.

The new move is meant to curb impersonation and cheating during exams.

At the same time, the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) secretary, Mr Paul Wasanga, said candidates in the clashes-torn Mt Elgon District will be escorted to and from the examination centres by security personnel.

Speaking during a Press briefing at the Hilton Hotel yesterday, Mr Wasanga said the provincial administration in Mr Elgon District has been tracing the whereabouts of displaced candidates and plans have been made to transport them to their respective examination centres under police escort.

The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination kicks off on Monday and runs up to November 16 while Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) tests will be done from November 13 to November 15.

Mr Wasanga said the decision to introduce photographs in the certificate was a result of the increasing cases of impersonation.

He said under the new system, the picture provided at the time of registration will be the one to be put on the certificate.

Mr Wasanga further said the council was faced with a major challenge of detecting cheating with the emergence of the modern communication technology.

He said all wireless gadgets including cellphones, MP3 players and bluetooth earphones have been banned from examination rooms. This means that no candidate or invigilators will be allowed to have the equipment in examination centres.

Other new measures put in place during this year's examination include introduction of security seal numbers on labels indicating whether a particular papers was written in the morning or afternoon. These will be in different colours for ease of identification.

Examination papers

The colours of the polybags containing the examination papers have also been changed to red for KCPE and blue for KCSE.

The declaration at the back of each polybag has been changed to be signed by the head teacher, supervisor, two of the candidates and all invigilators indicating that the contents are not tampered with.

And for the first time in the history of Knec, spare question papers will not be kept by the supervisor as has been the case before but they will be sealed in front of the candidates and kept at the front desk in the exam room for the entire period of the paper.