Examination supervisors and coordinators in North Eastern have been told to ensure that there are no irregularities in this year's KCPE.
The appeal came from North Eastern regional commissioner Mohamed Birik on Monday during the opening of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary School examination container in Garissa sub-county office.
Birik regretted that the region had one of the highest cancellation rates of the national examination last year.
“We cannot afford to repeat that mistake,” the administrator said. “It’s time for everyone involved in the supervision and coordination of the national exams to take responsibility.”
He said that the malpractices "happened in the presence of exam managers, invigilators and other officials supervising the exam in all the centres".
“If there are any exam malpractices, all those tasked with the supervision must be held responsible,” the administrator said as he assured candidates, parents and guardians that the government will ensure a "credible exam this time round".
He declared all exam centres "no-go zones to any other people except monitors, candidates and security personnel".
Birik said that security along the border with war-torn Somalia where al-Shabaab militants are a threat has been beefed up on the ground and aerial surveillance increased.
North-Eastern has 15,564 KCSE candidates this year in 186 exam centres. There are 10,433 males and 5,131 females.
Countrywide, there are 699,745 candidates compared to last year's 664,585.
In Mandera, security has been beefed up in Lafey and Mandera East along the border with Somalia to prevent disruption of the exercise by the Al Shabaab.
Security is particularly tight in Lafey and Mandera East along the border.
County commissioner Onesmus Kyatha told the candidates to write their examination without fear.
County Education director Abdihamid Maalim said there are over 2,800 male candidates compared to 1,300 females.
Maalim said the exercise is running smoothly in all the 62 examination centres now that the rains and floods have reduced.
During the just-concluded KCPE, four centres in Mandera West received the examination materials late on day one due to inaccessible roads.
