A teacher who impersonated examination officials to obtain test papers to leak to students will be deregistered, TSC chief executive Nancy Macharia has said.
Macharia said the commission is also investigating a school principal who allegedly screenshot exam questions and posted them on her WhatsApp.
In another case, she said, the commission is probing a senior teacher whose phone had screenshots of exam questions. The phone, “was recovered as the cell phone was being transported to a candidate who was sitting the examination at a hospital.”
Acknowledging that the cases are a tip of the iceberg, Macharia said the commission will introduce biometric listing and validation of all teachers to enable proper investigation of tutors involved in such malpractices.
“This will entail enlisting their fingerprints, which can then allow for forensic and intelligence-led investigations in cases where examination papers are tampered with, and where cell phones and other gadgets are used to commit examination malpractices,” she said on Monday.
Macharia said the technology is motivated by the commission's suspicion that some of the teachers implicated in the exam malpractice were framed by exam stealing cartels who have access to the central points where teachers surrender their phones during invigilation.
"Could there, for instance, be a cartel of examination thieves that accesses cell phones of innocent examination officials once they are surrendered to a common point at the examination centres then using the gadgets to photograph examination papers before attempting to route them to their intended targets?" she posed.
The new biometric listing, she said, will assist in vindicating innocent teachers from being blamed for offences they did not commit.
Macharia also said 37 teachers in secondary schools, including 24 principals, three deputy principals and 10 classroom teachers had succumbed to Covid-19.
Macharia urged teachers to take Covid-19 vaccines, announcing that a total of 151,494 have taken the jab, constituting 48.9 per cent female and 51 per cent male.
A majority of teachers aged 58 years and above have been vaccinated.
She also announced that a vaccination centre at TSC headquarters have been set up so that teachers who visit the offices can receive the jab.
This is in addition to the 622 vaccine centres available to teachers in various medical facilities in the country.
