Error that Made Some 2023 KCSE Candidates Get Higher Grades
Error that Made Some 2023 KCSE Candidates Get Higher Grades
Error that Made Some 2023 KCSE Candidates Get Higher Grades
On Tuesday, April 9, the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) acknowledged that the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) had been printed incorrectly.
A glitch in the system caused the minus signs (-) to be removed for some grades, according to KNEC. This resulted in the printing of some students’ grades as D (plain) rather than D- (minus).
This came to light after the National Assembly Education Committee grilled KNEC Chief Executive Officer David Njengere and Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu about grade discrepancies in the 2023 KCSE exams.
The committee was informed during the grilling session that this error had affected 3,018 candidates nationwide across 1,059 examination centers.
In defense of itself, KNEC claimed that the online portal accurately displayed the results and that the only source of disparities was the printed nominal rolls that were given to the schools.
KNEC added that it had since sent updated printouts to the impacted schools. The trauma the impacted students went through and the ambiguity surrounding the mistakes alarmed MPs.
In addition, CS Ezekiel Machogu made it clear that the Ministry of Education had taken action to stop future occurrences of this kind.
“A technical team was constituted, with representation from the Ministry of ICT and the Digital Economy, the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Unit and the ICT Authority,” said Machogu.
“By a letter dated March 4, 2024, the team submitted its report to the Ministry of Education” , he stated.
It was suggested that a multi-sectoral ICT committee be established to supervise the examination procedure from marking to the release of results and to conduct routine load tests to gauge system capacity.
In order to proactively spot any weaknesses, KNEC was also required to modernize its IT infrastructure and put continuous performance monitoring in place.
CS Ezekiel Machogu declared the results of the 2023 KCSE exam to be released on January 8. However, when parents noticed obvious irregularities, doubts were voiced regarding the validity of the findings.
This comes after using the KNEC official portal to access various results for multiple schools. The grades of various subjects had changed, which raised concerns based on the results that were shared.
