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Belio said the KCPE exams were conducted seamlessly without any major cases of exam malpractices.
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He hoped that the same would be emulated this week as KCSE begins.
Image: ENOS TECHE
Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang has called on everyone involved in the administration of national exams to uphold integrity.
Belio spoke on Monday at the Westland Sub-County containers where centre managers were picking papers for session one.
"The amount of investments we are putting into protecting the integrity of our examination should not be this high. We need to build trust as Kenyan people. This trust deficit is killing all of us. As a country we should not continue this way" the PS said.
"We are here at 6 am because we want to police ourselves. It is not right. We should be able to leave our children be children."
He acknowledged that it will be hectic for exam centre managers to pick papers twice a day from the containers as the ministry tries to curb early exposure to exams.
He said if the exams proceed seamlessly, then at some point centre managers will be allowed to pick exams once in the morning.
"Picking papers twice a day might raise concern. We hope we can reach a point where we're picking the papers once as the exam period progresses," the PS said.
He said there has been a multi-agency approach to ensure there is no early exposure or cheating during the papers.
The PS said the ministry has worked with the Communications Authority of Kenya and the Cyber Crime unit under the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to ensure exam cheating does not happen.
"We have shut down a number of social media sites. We have even arrested a number of people. This week I am very sure we shall continue being on the look for those attempting any exam malpractices," he said.
"One of the people that we arrested had posted Monday's paper on Tuesday. What is the point of posting Monday's paper on Tuesday? What we think is that they are trying to build confidence with their clients that they can deliver the papers. But they were delivering a day later."
Belio said the KCPE exams were conducted seamlessly without any major cases of exam malpractices.
He hoped that the same would be emulated this week as KCSE begins.
Some 903,260 candidates will be sitting this year’s KCSE exam.
Candidates will sit Chemistry Paper 1 and English Paper 1 on the first day of the theory tests.
On Tuesday, candidates will sit for Maths Paper 1 and English Paper 2.
On Wednesday, November 8, candidates will sit for Chemistry Paper 2 and English Paper 3.
On Thursday, November 9 the learners will be tested in Kiswahili Lugha Paper 2 and Kiswahili Insha Paper 1.
For the entire Friday, the candidates will do their Chemistry practicals.
The exams started on October 23 with practical papers and will run for a whole month till the end of November.