The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) made a startling revelation on Tuesday, April 9, acknowledging a significant mistake in the printing process of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam results.
The error, attributed to a system glitch, resulted in the omission of minus signs (-) for certain grades. Consequently, some students' grades were recorded incorrectly; for instance, a D (plain) was printed instead of a D- (minus).
This revelation came to light during a session where Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu and KNEC Chief Executive Officer David Njengere faced questioning from the National Assembly Education Committee regarding inconsistencies in the 2023 KCSE exam grades.
During the inquiry, it was disclosed that 3,018 candidates from 1,059 examination centers nationwide were impacted by this oversight.
In response, KNEC clarified that while the online portal displayed accurate results, the discrepancies were confined to the printed nominal rolls distributed to schools. Corrected printouts were promptly provided to affected schools.
Concerns were raised by members of parliament regarding the distress experienced by affected students and the resultant confusion.
CS Ezekiel Machogu reassured the public that the Ministry of Education had taken corrective measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. He outlined the formation of a technical team comprising representatives from the Ministry of ICT and the Digital Economy, the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Unit, and the ICT Authority.
Machogu highlighted that the team submitted its findings to the Ministry of Education via a letter dated March 4, 2024. One of the recommendations included the establishment of a multi-sectoral ICT committee to oversee the examination process from marking to result release, along with regular load testing to evaluate system capacity.
Additionally, KNEC was tasked with upgrading its IT infrastructure and implementing continuous performance monitoring to promptly identify any potential shortcomings.
The authenticity of the 2023 KCSE examination results came under scrutiny on January 8, when CS Ezekiel Machogu announced their release. Parents detected significant anomalies as several schools obtained different results upon accessing the KNEC official portal. Notably, grades for various subjects had been altered, causing widespread concern.