Invigilator faces jail time over KCSE exam leakage in Migori

An invigilator in Migori Country was Tuesday arrested for leaking the ongoing Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) to candidates ahead of scheduled time.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said the invigilator will face criminal charges in court even as the police search for his accomplices.

“We have arrested an invigilator at a centre in Migori County who was sharing some of the materials that are exposed before the time scheduled,” Prof Magoha said Tuesday.

He said the malpractice happened between the period when the examination papers left the distribution centre (metallic containers) and when they arrive at the examination centre.

The 752,891 candidates in the 10,437 centres have so far sat six examination papers of the 2020 KCSE as the government tightens security to curb exam cheating.

“In the current circumstances, unprofessional examination officials… shared the questions with targeted candidates before exam start-time,” he said.

In December 2019, the Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) cancelled results for 1,309 candidates linked to cheating.

This was a decrease from the previous year when results for 4,519 candidates were withheld pending investigations into cheating.

This year’s KCSE started on Thursday last week and is the first to be administered at a different time other than November-December.

The candidates are expected to sit two metres apart to ensure social distancing is adhered to in line with health protocols to combat spread of Covid-19.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) engaged some 227,679 teachers to serve the Knec as invigilators, supervisors, centre managers and examiners during this year’s exams.

Prof Magoha sought to alley fears of more leakage, saying that all examination materials are safe and no candidate will have unfair advantage over the rest during the test.