Report Points Out 5 Nairobi Private Schools Leading in KCSE 2022 Exam Malpractice
On March 31, 2023, education sector players presented a report to the National Assembly Committee on Education, stating that private schools and private exam centers were leading in exam cheating.
The information was presented during the committee’s last day of public hearings on exam malpractice in the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.
The report mentioned five schools: Light Academy, Dagoretti, Asilaam Academy, Lang’ata, Starehe Private Centre, Makadara Private Centre, and Embakasi Private Centre.
Nairobi County examination officials and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) presented their reports before the committee.
The KUPPET Secretary General, Akelo Misori, reported irregular jumps in school mean scores, skewed distribution of performance scores, and examiners’ testimonies.
Misori noted that schools usually improve by an average mean score of 1.0, but some schools improve by 5.0, which requires scientific investigation.
To back his point, Misori mentioned Mobamba High School, which had a mean score of 6.2 out of 12 in 2021, and in 2022, they got 9.28 out of 12. Another school, St. Paul’s Igonga, had 5.89 out of 12 in 2021 and 10.2 out of 12 in 2022.
Misori added that statistically, the performance of the 2022 KCSE exam was a skewed distribution, where few students had exemplary performance while a large group of students performed poorly.
The 2022 KCSE had 881,416 candidates; only a tiny percentage attained C+ and above, earning them direct entry into universities. The vast majority needed to achieve more points to enter university. Those who scored D- were 359,828.
Nairobi county education officials showed that the use of mobile phones in examination rooms was rampant in private schools and exam centers. Students in at least five schools were caught with mobile phones.
Other centers had unauthorized materials inside the exam room, while some private exam centers had cases of impersonation of students who presented fake documents to write exams for others.
The announcement of the 2022 KCSE results in January 2023 by Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu sparked an uproar. Some of the issues cited were skewed improvements, with some schools that posted low results the previous year recording very high marks in 2022.
Report Points Out 5 Nairobi Private Schools Leading in KCSE 2022 Exam Malpractice
