The Principal Secretary for Basic Education, Dr Belio Kipsang has asked educators to reclaim the trust of the society by managing this year’s national examinations in an honest manner.
He said that teachers should ideally pick examination scripts from the collection centres, administer the examinations and return answer sheets without fears that they will temper with the administration of the examinations.
“We must deal with the trust deficits society has developed in the teaching profession in the handling of national examinations,” Dr. Kipsang noted, saying they should be in a position to conduct national examinations the way doctors manage their patients without the presence of security officials in the wards or theatres.
The Principal Secretary made the remarks during a meeting with field education officials together with their National Government Administration officers’ counterparts in the Coast Region at Shimo La Tewa Secondary school in Mombasa on Tuesday this week.
Present during the occasion included an official from the Coast Regional Coordinator, Mr. Mbogo Mathioya, Director General, Dr Elyas Abdi, the Coast Region Director of Education, Mr.Lucas Chebet, County and subcounty County Directors from the whole Coast region.
Dr Kipsang said the ministry will put measures in place to ensure that examinations in this country will remain credible.
“As officers deployed to oversee the administration of national examinations, we must therefore ensure that we guard the conduct of the examinations against all sorts of malpractices so as to enhance credibility, validity and reliability of the examinations,” he said.
Dr. Kipsang expressed concern that some school heads continued to impose illegal levies on parents to pay teachers who conduct remedial teaching, saying remedial teaching was illegal.
“We cannot explain why we need extra hours in the name of remedial teaching,” Dr Kipsang noted.
He said the hours the Ministry of education has prescribed for teaching was sufficient for skills, competencies and knowledge to apply in tackling examinations.
He pointed out that remedial teaching and the levies associated with it was a burden to parents.
“Extra levies had made us acquire a bad name under the name of remedial teaching,” Dr. Kipsang said.
He expressed concern at the resurgence of student indiscipline in school, saying students causing trouble in schools were compromising their futures.
He said the government will be firm with students causing trouble and destruction of property in schools. He, however, asked school management to broaden the scope of their engagement with students to avert some of the unavoidable factors that lead to student unrest and destruction of property.
