2 November 2009
Nairobi — Exam questions of the ongoing KCSE continued to be leaked on Monday, three days after the Nation exposed a racket through which candidates received tests long before the scheduled time.
Officials of the Kenya National Examinations Council have denied that the exam questions were being leaked out, but early Monday, the Daily Nation obtained handwritten questions of a biology paper which matched the paper that candidates sat later in the day.
The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education biology Paper 2 was to be sat from 10.30am, but the Nation had obtained a copy of the questions by 8am.
The matter was reported to Kahawa Wendani police post and recorded as OB/04/2/11/09.
According to the Kenya National Examinations Council, no paper can be opened before the exams start.
Even then, the examination supervisors and invigilators cannot release any exam papers to the public until after the day's papers are sat. But yesterday, the Nation also obtained the actual paper before 2pm and confirmed that the questions were the same as those that had been obtained earlier that morning.
The evidence was presented to the examinations council before the tests ended.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights called on Education minister Sam Ongeri and other exam officials to accept responsibility and step down for failing to protect the credibility of the exams.
Vice-chairman Hassan Omar Hassan said reports about the leaks had become an annual occurrence, which had put the country's examination system to question.
But later, Knec corporate affairs manager Ken Ramani said: "We have launched investigations and we will comment on the matter later."
On Sunday, Mr Ramani dismissed an exclusive report by the Nation, which broke the story that examinations being leaked.
A total of 330,000 Form Four candidates are sitting the exams, which began on October 21.
A two-week investigation established that a cartel of traders has established centres from where it relays question papers to its agents and candidates up to eight hours before the exams begin.
The questions are conveyed to candidates using short text messages and mobile phone calls, according to the findings by the Saturday Nation.
On Wednesday last week, reporters obtained 12 geography Paper 2 questions before the exam started.
It turned out that all the questions that were in a handwritten format -- and read to our contacts through mobile phones.
The only difference in the questions was that they were written in short form, some in form of statements, which provided a good guide for students to find quick answers. Other questions obtained in advance and which turned out to be genuine were in Kiswahili (Fasihi) and literature.
Reported casesThe Fasihi paper was examined on Wednesday morning.
The cheating appears to have gone largely unnoticed and there have been no reported cases to the police or the exam agency.
But Knec boss Paul Wasanga, insisted that no exam papers were being leaked.
"As far as the council is concerned, not a single exam question has been leaked," he said. He declined to comment on specific questions relating to hand-written questions, which turned out to be genuine.
"Those are past papers and once a paper has been done, it becomes public property," he said. "I am not aware of any exam question that was out before the permitted time," he said.
Although the Nation had reported its advance questions to the police as proof that the documents had been obtained in advance, Mr Wasanga dismissed the move.
"The police (station) is not the council," he said, "Verification of examination materials is done at the council."
Mr Wasanga said Knec had put in place watertight measures to ensure no candidate or outsider obtained the exam papers beforehand.
But in the Fasihi case, all the six questions in a handwritten paper matched those that were tested, although some were written in shorthand.
Two weeks ago, the Daily Nation obtained parts of hand-written maths and geography papers in Nairobi which were being sold for Sh30,000.
Two students were later arrested in Nandi and Marani amid reports from some parts of the country that candidates were buying and revising questions they claimed were genuine exam tests. Those arrested were found with an English test papers in Oyugis Town, Rachuonyo District.
Senior deputy secretary Eddah Muiruri said Knec was convinced that the exam papers discovered in different parts of the country were not genuine.
Last year, Knec dismissed similar reports, but it turned out that the papers were genuine.
The findings mirrored those of an investigation by Knec whose contents were exclusively published by the Nation in February.
The report revealed that a gang based in Coast Province had been stealing and selling national exam papers for almost a decade.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
