Peter Ngare
23 October 2008
Nairobi — More than 40 people have been arrested countrywide for peddling papers purported to be copies of the on-going Form Four national examinations.
Education permanent secretary Karega Mutahi, while insisting that no paper had leaked, on Thursday said that police were narrowing down their investigations to nine districts affected by what he described as "illegal trade".
The areas are Meru South, Malindi, Garissa, Kisii, Kisumu, Machakos, Nairobi, Nakuru and Ol Kalou.
The sale of the fake examination papers was costing the Kenya National Examination Council colossal amounts of money in its effort to crackdown on the perpetrators of the trade, Prof Mutahi said.
Unethical
"Police and the ministry have established that many parents and candidates are falling prey to con people, who are selling them fake papers at between Sh20,000 and Sh30,000 for a set," he said.
"These are people bent on eroding the credibility of our national examination and it is sad that parents are taking part in such unethical practice."
But as the Ministry of Education embarked on what amounted to a media offensive, questions were emerging as to whether the so-called fake papers were really fake.
A number of teachers, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, expressed concern that candidates kept going to them with questions, which eventually appeared in the exams.
Some candidates have also expressed concern that some of their colleagues had the advantage of accessing the examination papers before the date due for sitting for the tests.
But speaking at the Press conference, the Kenya National Examination Council's chief executive, Mr Paul Wasanga, asked supervisors to be extra-vigilant when collecting examination materials at police stations to ensure that seals on the bags were intact.
"We have put coded security seals in bags containing examination papers and supervisors should not accept any set if the seal is tampered with.
"The candidates should also insist that the bags containing the papers be opened as they watch. Bag should never be opened before the time set for a paper to start," said Mr Wasanga.
Last year, cheating was reported in KCSE examinations, which was made worse by errors in the grading which affected 40,000 candidates.
Exam material
Elsewhere, four people were on Thursday charged in court with accessing this year's Form Four examination material.
Mr Ahmed Abdulahi Khalil, Mr Omar Ali Awadh, Mr Khalid Abdalla Sheikh and Mr Nick Munga Kalu, were denied bond by a Malindi court, which ordered them back to custody as investigations continue.
They were accused of gaining access to the mathematics question paper at Central Estate in Malindi on Wednesday.
They revealed the contents of the Maths Paper One to unauthorised people, including candidates, the court heard.
In a related case, two university students charged with forging and selling exam papers were remanded for one week.
The prosecution objected to the bail application by University of Nairobi's Morris Otieno Okong'o and Mr Brian Stephen Owino from the Kenya Polytechnic University College saying investigations were incomplete.
Additional reports by Daniel Nyassy and Bob Odalo
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