Editor's Review

KNEC also defended the Isiolo school where marks in the science subject were identical among all candidates, saying the results were correctly entered.

The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) has expressed itself in the midst of attacks from Kenyans online over supposed discrepancies in the results of the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination.

For the better of Saturday, November 25, the agency was accused of bungling the national examination given the results in certain schools.

Later in a statement, KNEC acknowledged there being errors some of which the body attributed to the flaws in the system that was disseminating the results via text messages, confirming that the results in the portal were accurate.

"It was brought to the attention of KNEC that results for some candidates had a misalignment of the marks and grades in Kiswahili as they were placed at the Kenyan Sign Language. There were also cases where the grades in Science and Social Studies and Religious Education were truncated incorrectly and were missing the plus (+) and minus (-) signs as expected.

The error affected only the SMS results due to configuration issues, as the results in the KNEC portal are accurate. KNEC notified the SMS service provider and the error in the text messages was resolved immediately," said KNEC.

National examination candidates in class.

The body further confirmed receipt of plaints from candidates whose English and Kiswahili results were not accurate.

It established that 133 cases were confirmed and that measures had been undertaken to rectify them.

"KNEC also received queries from candidates with low marks in some of the subjects, mainly in English and Kiswahili. KNEC has reviewed all the appeals and found that there were one hundred and thirty-three (133) candidates affected. These cases have all been addressed and results for the affected candidates updated appropriately," said the exams body.

Addressing the question of identical results in science subjects at an Isiolo school, KNEC cleared the centre of any involvement in exam malpractices.

"KNEC has reviewed the results for the school and all the reports that were received from the examination centres and anonymous letters and has not found any indication that the school was involved in examination malpractices. Science is a multiple-choice question paper, thus making it possible for the candidates to get identical marks. Though this may be assumed to be an examination irregularity, it is not adequate evidence for KNEC to sanction the results for candidates without a supporting report that cheating happened during the administration of the examination," it explained.