Mombasa — A total of 263,241 candidates are sitting this year's Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations at the coast region.
The Coast Regional Director of Education Luka Kangogo said the region has 125, 296 KCPE candidates and 137,945 candidates for KPSEA.
The class eight candidates will sit the examination in 2,019 centres acnd the grade six candidates will be doing their examination in 2,472 KPSEA centers across the region.
Kangogo said the Education Ministry is working closely with the Ministry of Interior to ensure examination papers are distributed to all parts of the coast.
He said Lamu County, which had in the recent months witnessed cases of terror attacks, has remained relatively calm during these recent weeks.
"Lamu is peaceful, in the last two or three weeks the area has been calm. We do not expect any insecurity issue now," said Kangogo.
He assured learners and parents that in case of any unexpected security incidents, examination centres will be moved to safer areas.
He was speaking after supervising the opening of examination container at Coast Regional Headquarters. A total of 53 containers are secured at the Uhuru na Kazi Building with the region's examination papers.
Kangogo also assured learners that despite the expected rains, the examination papers will be distributed to all regions of the coast.
"We are well prepared for these exams irrespective of the rains that will be pouring. We are not in any way worried about what we have done," he said.
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He said if the rains disrupt the examinations they will request for choppers to ferry the examination papers to areas that will not be accessible by road.
In Mombasa, a total of 24,000 are sitting the KCPE examination and at least 25,000 are sitting the KPSEA examination.
In Taita Taveta, some 8,772 will write the KCPE examination, while other 8,541 will be sitting the KPSEA in 420 exam centres.
Mining Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvuryam who witnessed the examination distribution at Voi, said the government is prepared to use helicopters to distribute exam papers to parts of the coast that are likely to experience heavy rainfall.
He said the Ministry of Education is also working closely with other state agencies, including the Ministry of Interior to safeguard the examination and seal all the loopholes.
"We want to deliver a clean examination that is free from any irregularity," he said.
