Knec exams cheating is back as Raila Odinga slams Knec for these reasons

STATEMENT BY H.E. THE RT. HON. RAILA AMOLO ODINGA ON THE URGENT ACTIONS NEEDED TO PROTECT INTEGRITY OF KENYAN EXAMS AND CERTIFICATES:

Dear Kenyans,
Since 2016, the country has been on the path of major reforms in the education sector and notably in the management of national examinations.

These reforms were intended to restore sanity to the examination process and maintain the dignity and integrity of our education sector. They were meant to ensure that our graduates at whatever level are recognized and respected across the world.

Back in 2016, and following serious concerns about the management of national exams, the Government of Kenya identified a secure printing firm in the UK – Stephen Austin Printing Ltd. This is a Security printing firm that deals with several exams and other high stakes documents in different parts of the world. Kenyans will agree that in that period, sanity returned in the management of exams, with grades that reflected reality.

We have established that early this year, the Kenya Kwanza administration suddenly and abruptly stopped this contract just because the UK company refused to give kickbacks.

Without following any legal procurement processes, due diligence procedures, and attention to examination timelines, the Kenya Kwanza administration awarded the KCPE and KCSE exam printing contract to a politically-correct local company based on Mombasa Road in Nairobi. The government was advised that the Mombasa Road-based company did not have the capacity to print the exams and also ensure its security and integrity, especially on such short notice. Nobody would budge because there were kickbacks involved.

We are aware that the Mombasa Road company then had to outsource the exam printing services from a company based in India, where the exams were printed in a hurry.
We are also aware that the UK firm whose contract was canceled declined to provide codes to the many layers of security that had been encrypted to safeguard the integrity of both KCPE and KCSE.

We believe this process, of a sudden change of printer and having them printed on short notice, is responsible for the disaster we have witnessed with respect to KCPE. The situation was worsened by the fact that in return for kickbacks, the procurement for relaying the results to the public using the short code 40054 was also taken away from the original provider and awarded on short notice and corruptly to a company that does not have the capacity to handle the same.

This led to the mess where the results received expensively using the short code were different from the one on the KNEC portal and sent to schools. It led to what KNEC has called misalignment of marks and grades. Grades in Science and Social Studies as well as Religious Studies were truncated. The system deployed could not produce the Plus and Minus signs. What a shame.

Consequently, for the first time in our country, some children are in court, seeking to establish their true grades while the education ministry is admitting students to form one, including those still challenging the marks they were awarded.

This impunity and corruption that is messing up the future of our young people are sanctioned from the highest offices in the land.

We can today disclose that the mess in KCPE started as a tender war pitting various senior officials in the Ministry of Education against each other before eventually being taken over by an official much higher in government. The hunt for quick money has now taken the Kenya Kwanza tenderpreneurs from petroleum products and edible oils to exams. It has messed up the 2023 KCPE and will likely find its way into KCSE, whose marking is currently underway in a tense and uncertain environment.

Over the decades, Kenya has had a reputation for a credible and trustworthy education system that culminates in rigorous, fiercely competitive but eventually credible examinations and certificates.

Today, this respect for our education and particularly our exams is under serious threat. Kenyans are very much alive to the challenges that have been facing the integrity of our exams in recent years. That is why our young people joke darkly whether their colleagues have Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi, Dr. Fred Matiangi or Prof. George Magoha exam grades.

Today, the young people are struggling with the value of Mr. Ezekiel Machogu grades.
In view of the facts in our possession, we have today taken an unprecedented step and written to key education stakeholders for a partnership to secure and defend the integrity of Kenyan exams and the certification that accrues from it.

We have taken these steps out of a firm belief that once we allow education and exam systems to be caught up in tender wars, then we have no country to talk about. It is a universally accepted principle that the collapse of the education system is the collapse of a nation.

We believe that devaluing the integrity of our exams and certificates presents an existential threat to our country, and we have to close ranks and deal with it dispassionately and professionally.

We will be subjecting our children to ridicule, diminished employment especially overseas, and admission opportunities in the region and abroad if we allow the integrity of our exams and certification to be questionable. And the truth is that these are getting questioned.

We have, therefore, written to the following bodies:
1. The Catholic Bishops Conference.
2. The National Council of Churches of Kenya.
3. The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims.
4. The Kenya Secondary School Heads Association.
5. The Primary School Head Teachers association.
6. The Kenya National Union of Teachers.
7. The Law Society of Kenya
8. The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers.
9. The National Parents Association.
10. The Kenya Private Schools Association.
11. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
12. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
13. The Federation of Kenya Employers.

We know the role of churches and other religious organizations in the education sector since the beginning of the last century.

We know how much effort teachers put into ensuring they mold young people into successful products that they can be proud of. The education sector does not belong to the government of the day. The integrity of the education sector is for all Kenyans.
We believe that as a country, and for the sake of our children, we can do better than this greed beyond measure.

Virtually every home had a candidate or knew a candidate among those who sat KCPE and KCSE. KCPE alone had close to 1.4 million candidates. The steps we outline below are critical:
1. The circumstances under which the printing of exams was transferred from the UK to Mombasa Road must be investigated.
2. Kenyans must be told how the integrity of the exams was secured during the transfer from the UK to Mombasa Road and later to another printer in Asia.
3. It is the right of Kenyans to know the cost of the termination of the contract with the UK firm.
4. Kenyans must be informed of how the Mombasa Road firm was identified and awarded the tender and if procurement laws were followed.
5. Kenyans must also be informed of how the firm to relay KCPE results was identified, whether it is the same one that will relay KCSE results and whether procurement laws were adhered to.

Going by the fate of the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakango, we believe political interference will not allow the EACC and DCI to deal with this matter. But we put this issue to the agencies as a matter of public record. And the warning must go out there that in another era, all will be held accountable, including these criminals.

It is our position that the stakeholders come together, headed by the Catholic Church, or any other group that stakeholders can agree on and get to the bottom of the mess building up in our exam management.

There must be no room for favoritism in the conduct and marking of exams, where some schools and students are allowed to cheat and get away with it as happened in last year’s KCSE and this year’s KCPE. Sanity, integrity, and dignity must return to exams.

The buck stops with His Excellency William Ruto. It is our firm belief that mega corruption in billions cannot happen without the complicity of the top. Whether it is 17 billion in oils or the billions involved in the poisonous cooking oil, we know the dynamics of how the government operates.

The CS and PSs are small fries. The buck stops with Ruto.

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