When the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) released the 2023 KCPE examination results on November 23, A section of schools and students burst into celebrations while just like the previous KCPE results over the years, another section raised complaints.
Responding swiftly to the concerns, KNEC CEO Dr. David Njengere announced that schools have thirty days to appeal the results, which most head teachers are aware of.
“The KNEC Rules of 2015 Legal Notice 131 on the marking of examinations, release of results and certification, Rule 27, provides for candidates/schools to lodge appeals for review of the examination results to the Council in writing within thirty days from the date of release of the examination results,” remarked Dr. Njengere.
In addition, complaints from schools that were affected by the results they got via SMS were addressed immediately.
“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,” the KNEC CEO explained.
Key to note, out of the 28, 523 centers, KNEC has only received complaints from less than 10 centers; out of 1,406,507 learners, only 133 had errors that have since been addressed.
One case that has since gone viral on social media is from a school in Isiolo County with allegations that all students scored 75 marks in science.
KNEC has since reviewed the results of the school and established that there is no evidence of malpractice or discrepancy.
“KNEC has reviewed the results for the school and all the reports that were received from the examination centers 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,” Dr. Njengere noted.
Interestingly, the 2023 KCPE exam results are among those examination results that have recorded the least complaints from registration, administration, and release of results.
For instance, in the 2016 KCPE results, a school like Olympic Primary had a case where a majority of students scored 51% in mathematics.
In a case that shocked the country, a dead student in Kakamega County was awarded a grade in the 2018 KCSE exam.
Just like in previous cases, KNEC looked into the complaints and effectively addressed them.
While such cases may occur, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the credibility of the overall result is impacted.
