NEWS GANG: Exams fiasco, we are burning the future

First, really, as a country, we cannot proceed as if nothing just happened. We think the fiasco over the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education results is a big deal; indeed a grave matter.

SAM: So grave a matter that it would be understandable to note if a majority of well-meaning Kenyans are having a sleepless night about it. When doubts are cast over the integrity of such a foundational examination as the KCPE, then the country has a reason to worry, not just about its present but also its future.

LINUS: Indeed, we are in the middle of unchartered waters. We have searched deep into the history of our education and examination processes and indeed we have never been here. A line has been crossed and an abomination could well be underway. 

YVONNE: Abomination if we put it in the most conservative terms. All our past misadventures be they accidental or by design have rarely involved children. Even less, children of as tender ages as the thousands of KCPE candidates who sat their exams and expected that exams to be marked and their grades would be given without any drama.

SAM: The children of Kenya are witnessing drama. As government officials go to great pains to defend the integrity of the marking of those exams, the grading and subsequent release of the results. In the last two days education officials have been sweating it out explaining that they did their bit and that the results are an accurate reflection of the performance of the KCPE candidates. 

"The results as contained on the school portal were perfect, the results obtained from school portal were correct, with no single mistake. But the transmission, that is why the engineers here were giving me the technical language of what could have happened….even I could not understand," CS Machogu said at a Graduation of Eldoret Polytechnic on Wednesday.

LINUS: Now, one would be forgiven to think that is an electoral commission officer defending the regularly contested election in Kenya. Pardon us, that is the cabinet secretary in charge of education explaining that all is well. But a few questions arise. First, it’s been close to two weeks since the KCPE results were released. Where has the Cabinet secretary been?

YVONNE: When parents spent an entire two hours on Thursday the 23rd of November sending countless messages to the short message code provided without a response but with a cost, what was the unexplainable technical hitch?

SAM: When they eventually received messages on the phones but with misposted results, where was the explanation from the education officials? Well, the Kenya National Examinations Council came out to explain that the errors had been corrected and that if repeat messages were sent, they would return the accurate results. But that was two days later.

LINUS: You see, we live in a country where every successive government has taken pride in digital transformation. The current administration is on an overdrive to digitize more than 5,000 government services. While digitization is good, it must build on gains already attained. To explain away that it was a mere transmission error amidst a smile is to miss the point.

YVONNE: We are dealing with lives. Young lives for that matter. Look, tens of parents are now in court seeking the correct results for their children. This is unprecedented, that minors not older than fifteen are now counting on the judicial system to know how many marks they scored from just seven papers that they sat across three days. What are we telling them?

SAM: The 1.4 million candidates are waiting on the Ministry of Education to conduct the form one selection, and assign them schools based on their choices and availability of slots. And that will be communicated via, wait for it, the SMS platform and later an online portal.

LINUS: the 2023 KCPE exam was the 39th and the last. The class of 2023 deserved a smooth closure. They now proceed to the next level with questions, some of them injured. The pain was only relieved through scattered explanations.