Nairobi — Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has assured that all the necessary arrangements for this year's national examinations are in place.
Machogu stated that examination papers have been dispatched to all 565 distribution centers across the country.
The CS said that they have a new arrangement where exam center managers will pick examination papers two times a day whereby the Morning Paper will be picked in the morning and the Afternoon Paper will be picked in the afternoon.
He further added that they have increased the number of marking centers from 35 to 40 which he said is to give the examiners a conducive environment.
"And this time round the kind of arrangement that we have is such tha exam managers will the morning paper in the morning and the also get back in the afternoon for the afternoon paper" Machogu stated.
"The purpose of this is to avoid early exposure because the kind of allegations we have been getting there before is that we have few problems here and there because of early exposure,in order for us to seal that loophole once and for all is to have exam managers going for the papers two times a day," he reiterated.
The CS further said that they have increased the number of marking centers from 35 to 40 which he said is to give the examiners a conducive environment.
He also assured examiners that necessary arrangements have been made to make sure that they get compensated in good time whatever they are supposed to be paid is not going to delay.
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On the northern kenya security concerns, the CS called upon teachers to return to work as peace has been reinstated and the government is going to ensure their security is covered.
"Again our teachers in northern kenya I was in Mandela about two weeks ago,the security has improved and everything is good,and we want to request our teachers to go back to our schools in Mandera to continue with their work as the government will be able to provide security" the CS noted.
Machogu pointed out that the cabinet resolved to have first years who have not attained the age of 18 and hence have no identity cards will now access HELB effective this year.
"There before anybody who had not gotten an identity card was not able to access HELB,but this time round the wise counsel f his excellence the president and the cabinet it was resolved that even those who have not attained the age of 18,will be able to access HELB effect from his year"said Cs machogu.
He further said that over 125000 students have applied for scholarships and HELB and that they have done the processing, the CS added that they have gotten 10.3bilion for HELB and they are in the process of disbursing scholarships to various public universities in the country.
