Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba has dismissed as fake a viral press statement claiming that the government had delayed payments to contracted professionals involved in national examinations due to a lack of funds.
In an update on Thursday, April 23, he warned the public against falling for the circulating document, stating that it was not an official communication from the Ministry of Education.
"The document currently circulating is fake. I urge the public to treat it with the contempt it deserves," he said.
The disputed statement, which bears the branding of the Ministry of Education and is dated April 23, 2026, alleges that no funds had been allocated in the supplementary budget for the payment of contracted professionals engaged in the administration and marking of national examinations.
It further claims that payments would be processed in the next financial year, subject to budgetary allocations.
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This comes over a month after Migos denounced claims that the results of the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) results can be manipulated.
Appearing before the Senate Plenary on Wednesday, March 11, he defended the integrity of the KJSEA exam and dismissed claims that some of the results had been misreported.
Ogamba, who was responding to the question by Kisumu Senator Tom Ojienda, stated that the results released by the Kenya National Examination Council were accurate.
He explained that the assessment of learners is done on the basis of exceeding, meeting, approaching or being below expectations, which could not be doctored.
"KJSEA is a competency-based summative assessment administered at the end of Grade Nine to identify learners’ strengths, aptitudes and interests rather than to rank students through aggregate scores," the CS elaborated.
Ogamba told the senators that multiple quality assurance mechanisms are in place to safeguard the credibility of national assessments.
These include pilot testing of examinations, automated scoring systems, deployment of supervisors and invigilators during examinations, and validation of scores before results are released.
"All schools access the Competency-Based Assessment Portal, which enables the management of School-Based Assessments and provides a digital platform for reporting learner performance, supported by scoring rubrics and verification mechanisms to ensure uniformity and compliance with national assessment standards," the CS reiterated.
Ogamba explained that the final performance rating of Grade 9 students picks 20 percent from the KPSEA exam done at Grade 6, 20 percent from the School-Based Assessments, and 60 percent from the KJSEA exam.
