Students awarded grades for exams they never sat

Story by KENNETH OGOSIA Publication Date: 3/24/2008

Some students who did not sit last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination were awarded impressive mean grades, the Nation has learnt. The principal of Thurdibuoro Secondary school in Nyando District, Mr Alfred Ochiel, said one of his students who did not attempt the exams was graded. “This candidate in my school abandoned the exams midway. Normally, such candidates are not graded but KNEC decided to give him a D+,” he said. Teachers interviewed who did not want their names mentioned said they knew of a student in a city school who was awarded A- mean grade though he did not sit the exam. Another candidate in the city who was disqualified after being caught cheating was later given a B+ score by the examination council. The outcry over the integrity of the examination council compelled Education minister Sam Ongeri to form a 15 member committee chaired by Kenyatta University vice-chancellor Oliver Mugenda to investigate the results. In Rongo, a candidate who was expelled from school and did not turn up for the exams was awarded an A-. His head teacher was shocked to learn that the boy had “passed” so highly. Education PS Karega Mutahi has downplayed the gravity of the matter. Knec secretary Paul Wasanga said the anomalies will be part of the investigations. He said the team should be given a chance to unearth the details about the computer error or any other cause of the cheating”. Mr Wasanga said with 276,000 candidates, each sitting 22 papers, such mistakes were bound to happen and if discovered the matter will be dealt with accordingly. He said results for candidates who did not sit exams could have been released if other students erred by shading wrong index numbers. However, the examinations chief said he could not rule out anomalies. Mr Wasanga accused some principals of malice for “releasing result slips to the wrong hands and then turning to condemn Knec which they form part of as de facto officials.” He said some candidates could have forgotten their index numbers and marked wrong ones therefore enabling the computer memory to produce results in the programmed formula. He explained that the committee would investigate in detail the errors because in some instances, candidates who sat half the exams or did not complete due to unknown reasons also got results. A principal said one set of results was given in February and another one in March when those who did not sit exams were awarded mean grades. Kenya Post Primary Education Teachers Union secretary general Wanyonyi Buteyo said they would move to court to have the council dissolved because it had compromised the integrity of the country’s academic standards and certificates. Mr Buteyo said the minister was delaying justice but forming a probe committee in a clear case of incompetence.

Shocking revelations on KCSE fiasco

We have been asking the question of the validity of the 2007 KCSE results. Now the country is getting revelations of more irregularities. Read on

By Lillian Aluanga

Last year’s Form Four candidates could have another shocker coming their way because the new pecking order drawn by the national examinations body has even more relegations and surprises.

The "slight adjustments" for which Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) recalled the results of 4,438 candidates will see some schools fall back by as many as six slots from the position read by Education minister last month. The shocker awaiting parents and schools is contained in a second quietly revised KNEC list released to a handful of leading players in the education sector. It shows a remarkable decline in the fortunes of some schools that enjoy a national profile.

In some cases, however, some schools could come out better.

In the new list, which has the first 102 names, St Paul Secondary — which was in position 83 in the statement read out by the minister last month — does not feature at all. St Patrick Iten moves up from 82 to 69, while Chemelil Sugar slides from 69 to 74.

In the results released on February 28, Busara was number 40. In the revised ranking, done on March 7, a week after the results were released, Busara drops more than 20 places. As a result of this it loses its place in the top 50 and lands at position 61. In the new ranking, Busara’s performance index drops from 9.4347 to 8.8695.

Kabarak High School has moved from position 51 in the February list to 47.

Although Mangu High School remains at the top even in the new ranking, its performance index shifts slightly from 11.2634 to 11.2097.

But even the idea of a school with more than 100 candidates posting a mean score of 11 has stirred interest.

According to the new list, Loreto High School, Limuru, moves up to position three from four. Precious Blood Riruta, which was ranked third on February 28, is now fourth in the new list.

Maseno School now moves into the top 10 bracket after the revision of the results, up from number 11 nationally.

In the new ranking Sunshine Secondary School exits from its ninth position nationally to 11. Initially placed at position 50 with a mean score of 9.2555, Bura Girls’ High School in Taita Taveta District has moved up to 46.

But even as it shot up, its mean score dropped from 9.2555 in February to 9.1222.

Results recalled

In Taita Taveta District alone, at least 30 out of 43 secondary schools results were recalled.

Seasoned teachers from top performing schools yesterday widely conceded that never in their lifetime had they seen results being recalled or rankings revised.

A section of head teachers and parents angered by the bungled exam results have vowed to go full throttle to get to the bottom of the matter.

The new list was drawn before the constitution of a probe team, to "look into questions and concerns raised over the 2007 results" by Education minister Prof Sam Ongeri this week.

Students of Bahati Girls’ School , Nakuru, celebrated the KCSE results with joy when they were first released. Tables have turned and they have been dropped from position 14 to 17.

"The anomaly experienced in processing the mean grades in this year’s KCSE was highly regretted," said the ministry in an advertisement signed by KNEC chairman Prof Raphael M Munavu.

The ministry maintains the flawed results were as a result of a ‘computer error’, but the problem is limited to mean grade calculation. Kenyatta University Vice Chancellor Prof Olive Mugendi heads the probe team.

The attack on the integrity of Kenya’s exams, curiously in the environment of an equally flawed election process, has already been criticised by school heads. They want an independent body to oversee the remarking.

The minister, however, says the argument "defies logic", because it affects only 0.6 per cent of the candidates who sat the exams.

Some schools have threatened to go to court to seek orders for the review of the original papers written and submitted by candidates.

Parents at Friends School, Kamusinga, where the results of at least 30 students were affected, have set up a committee to draw up a suit. The school registered a massive drop in all subjects and was ranked at position 29. Friends School has been in the top-10 bracket for the past three years.

Maseno School is not celebrating even after moving to position 10. Instead, the school’s board is preparing to go to court and demand a remarking of two subjects.

"It is simply not possible for a school to drop in all subjects at once given that they had the same teachers. We are going to court and want to see the original scripts, the marking and how the averages were arrived at," said a parent at Kamusinga School.

In Maseno, the board detected a pattern where students who got A in English ended up with A- in either Kiswahili or Maths.

Another head teacher from Nyanza Province said exam cheating is on the rise and the ministry’s handling of the issue is disappointing.

"The process of marking exams is clear and rigorous. The manipulation of results could only have been done within KNEC’s higher ranks, long after the examiners had done their work," the principal said.

Cheating rampant

He added: "I have never heard of any place in the world where exam results have been recalled. KNEC has broken the record."

The principal said it was "unusual and has never happened" that in a school with more than 100 candidates, the lowest has a B+.

The law of "natural distribution", the principal said, does not allow for a school with more than 100 candidates to get a mean score of 11.00.

Even more unsettling are unconfirmed reports of the lengths to which some head teachers went in colluding with their students to ensure they were among the top schools.

In one school not more than 30km from Nairobi, several Form Two students are said to have spent a night at a hotel delivering answers to the exam questions.

In yet another school, Form Four students were reportedly asked to buy cell phones, which were to be used to relay answers.

"Exams are the culmination of the whole delivery of learning and teaching. If professionalism isn’t embraced and seen to be practicsed in the way examinations are handled then everything is wasted," says Mr Christopher Khaemba, the outgoing Alliance High School principal.

Results of at least 30 students at the school were affected.

Khaemba said since the ministry had already taken a stand on the issue, an independent commission should be set up to find out what really happened to last year’s examination results, which he describes as "extremely random".

Khaemba points out at several issues that he says are highly unusual of examination results. He cites the example of Limuru Girls’ which has more than 119 A’s in Mathematics and only 19 A’s in English.

"I haven’t seen this before. I don’t know how it is possible for the same students to score that many A’s in Mathematics and perform so poorly in English. After all, girls are known to do well in languages," he said.

Several head teachers in Western and Nyanza provinces are also calling for remarking of the exams to get a true reflection of the results.

A head teacher in western Kenya says most schools in the region were affected. He says something about last year’s exam results does not add up.

He too says the ‘randomness’ in this year’s results says a lot more than meets the eye and that it is misleading to blame the anomalies on a ‘computer error’ alone.

"We have prepared these students for a long time and know what they are capable of doing," he said.

"I have been in this profession for many years and have a general idea of the trends. This year’s results were not reflective of the students abilities and it is clear there was deliberate tampering," he added.

He cited the example of a school, which traditionally has its index 1-10 students scoring straight A’s but had at least five of its top students this year scoring lower grades.

The head teacher is incensed by what he calls the ministry’s "trivialisation" of the issue by saying that the number of students affected was negligible.

"The anomaly should never have happened. The Education minister doesn’t know what he is talking about. He wasn’t even the one in office when all this was happening. How can he possibly explain what happened?" he posed.

"How is it possible that a school shoots up more than 50 places at once? The move is usually progressive, when a school is either coming up or dropping," he says.

The head teacher said more than 20 students in his school were affected by the anomaly. He suggests that examiners should be recalled to cross check last year’s results.

He said concerns raised by some examiners over what they perceived to be cases of cheating were not taken seriously.

"I know there were some examiners who raised concern over cases of cheating that had been detected among some schools but these reports seem to have been ignored," the head teacher says.

"The examiners know which schools cheated. They should be recalled to come and help resolve this issue," he says.

Friends School principal, Mr Simon Nabukhwesi, who is also the Western School Heads Association chairman, says urgent measures must be taken to curb cheating in national examinations.

"Let us have these examination papers coming in complete with pictures of the candidates and details such as the index numbers printed on every page," he says.

This, he says, would reduce cases of having extra copies, which have often found their way into wrong hands.

But even as pressure mounts on the Kenya National Examinations Council over last year’s KCSE results debacle, Prof Ongeri appears to suggest that the matter is being ‘blown out of proportion’.

The minister has already ruled out remarking of the exam saying the number of candidates affected was ‘negligible’.

At least 4,000 out of 276,000 candidates were affected.

"Results released by the minister are always provisional, giving room for correction and complaints within 30 days. We registered a 99.4 per cent success rate. The error did not affect subjects, but aggregates so resitting, remarking or cancelling the examinations is null and void," Ongeri said.

Also adding its voice to the exam results fiasco is the Orange Democratic Movement parliamentary group, which dismissed the team set up by Ongeri to probe the matter.

The parliamentary group said the team cannot be trusted to carry out an inquiry and demanded that an independent body be established to work with the police in getting to the bottom of the matter.

The 15-member team has 18 days to carry out investigations and present the report to Ongeri. KNEC has also given all schools and candidates up to April 30 to raise any other questions associated with the 2007 KCSE results.

Khaemba suggests the establishment of parallel examining bodies of high standing as one way of improving the credibility of national examinations.

"We can have competing examination bodies as is the case in other countries like the UK, where you have exams administered by Oxford or Cambridge, and then allow the schools to choose," he says.

The outgoing head wonders why mock exams done at the district and provincial level do not record glaring irregularities like those seen in the national exam.

"We now have provincial and district examinations being handled better than national one. How is this possible?" Khaemba poses.

"If the Government is willing to spare resources, the remarking can be done. The scripts are still there. All it needs is to set some time aside, say in April, and then remark the exam," he says.

Kibaki's Top-up election rigging extended to Mitihani House?

Something is not adding up in the Kenya National Examinations Council, 2007 results for the fourth formers. After releasing the results in the thick of the haggling over a stolen election, the suave Prof Sam Ongeri and the discredited Kenya National Examinations Council has gone ahead and recalled some results. We are witnessing institutional collapse in Kenya, whether we like to face the truth or not.

Is KNEC another ECK? Are the institutions curtseying at the stinking feet of power mongers and influence peddlers who went behind our back to tamper with the results while the country was transfixed on a stolen democracy? Was there top-up for some candidates and regions which were PNU-positive? Questions for which we have no answers but which, nonetheless, our countless army of readers are asking for an explanation.

You may view the KCSE results here. Simply unzip the files, open with Ms Word and change the page set-up to landscape.

What shocked people was the slump in the performance of traditional academic powerhouses like Alliance High School, an Alma mater of many leading Kenya leaders in industry and academia. Alliance sank to position eight, barely making it to the top ten in the rankings. The school blamed it on alleged exam leaks. Wait a minute.

The best girl was ranked 17th nationally, Ms Muzna Hanif Abdulrazak of Agha Khan High School Mombasa has made history of some sorts. The top girl wants to study medicine, good news for the girl-child and the Muslim woman. We congratulate her and all the other girls who did it.

The top school, Mangu, had never been anything near to the apex of national glory for a very long time. Remember that the school produced the powerful individuals in the land, including, yeeeees, bandit president Mwai Kibaki. Alliance Boys has alleged that their competitors had unfair advantage. That they had access to the exam in advance. It is not new. In Moi's Kenya, this was done every year for schools in his native Baringo. But that was the dark era. What is now obvious is the fact that 2007 KCSE has been disputed pitying Alliance and KNEC/Ministry of Education.

It has been claimed in different fora that the KCSE leakage was rampant and nearly every school was aware. Some parents and candidates, not to be left behind, even scrambled and obtained the actual exam papers before they were offered to sit it. The examiners, who themselves may have been complicit in the 'rigging of exams' turned a blind eye on the theft and pilferage of exams. But how?

Claims of Top-ups and Top-downs
There have been claims which we could not verify, involving candidates who registered for, but did not take up the exams, receiving an A for a fictitious test. Mr Kibaki had a top-up of one million votes from constituencies like Maragwa where pregnant women and their unborn children voted. How else would you explain a turn-out of 115%? But what is our seeing a connection here?

Those people who stole the presidency for Mr Kibaki were inept, they failed to balance their books. Obviously, somebody borrowed the top-up magic from Kivuitu's cook-book and decided to cook and serve results. The outcome of that manipulation is that the results don't add up. Those who were known to be weak or had dropped out of school ended up surpassing their superior and hard-working students. How else could this happen? T-O-P-U-P. Remember that for every top-up, there was a T-O-P-D-O-W-N. Was Alliance High School a victim of adjusted 'sambaza' of marks?

The case of the student who registered and failed to take the exam but was awarded a beautiful 93% in maths was reported in a school in the Rift Valley. The headteacher was simply dumbstruck. In a dump move by the KNEC, a girl candidate at Kipsigis Girls High school was entered as a male (M) and nobody noticed this for a girls school in an institution like the KNEC where details are handled with a tooth-comb. No, it was not an error for the student (512103-092, Chepkemoi Judith). By entering her as an M, someone is imprisoning her in endless trips to Mitihani House to effect the correction. Were the ODM zones targeted for punishment by PNU-positive officials at KNEC? Are exam irregularities engineered and managed by computer geeks affiliated to PNU inflicting further damage to the ODM zones?

This blog was contacted by a well-wisher who supports a number of school children in Kenya. We all know that once in a while we come across people who can spare a dollar here and a pence there, which translates to a lot of money in Kenya shillings. The distraught benefactor was concerned and we reproduce their email for you to see why this exam fiasco is not a local village matter, the whole world is seeing what we are going through and the credibility of our school leavers will be called to question, believe us.

I'm a XXXXXX married to a Kenyan. I've followed Kenyan politics for quite a while and I congratulate you for the great part you played in restoring some sanity in Kenya. Your blog is absolutely great. However, my wife has relatives in Western Kenya and we are really saddened by the recent revelations of wrong KCSE results. I know for a fact that the lives of thousands of young adults have been messed but this. We have the benefit of paying our relatives an repeat year. But what about those who cannot afford this? They have now failed or gotten worse grades than needed for decent studies.Long story cut short: THIS IS A LEVEL 1 SCANDAL OF THE SAME MAGNITUDE AS THE SHOOT-TO-KILL ORDER.

So I wanted to ask you to post this story and some background on your blog so that the exam body and education ministry cannot cover-up the mess. Thank you very much, Tom.

Fellow Kenyans, you can now see where we are going. Education is a must-have in our current life, its life-changing potential cannot be gainsaid. By tampering with exam results through top-up or top-down, somebody has, with the stroke of a pen promoted an undeserving kid and killed the spirit of a patriotic and hard-working Kenyan.

How shall we stop this menace? One way is to name names and shame them. Just imagine the damage we did to the thieves and bandits that we tagged on the right of this blog (thief-in-chief, warlord-in-chief, traitor-in-chief, etc which we have received countless times in our private emails from people who consider the tagging to be lethal and very effective). This blog is dedicated to do that.

We cannot sit back and watch Kenyan children being graduated into criminal gangs because their progress has simply been reversed. That cannot happen in a Kenya where we want to belong to a country that guards the rights of the weakest while allowing the mighty to rule with responsibility. We are demanding an audit of the KNEC by an independent and credible body of auditors, the results and all the events that took place between the end of marking before Christmas and the release of the results. Were there any faceless criminals who had security passes to restricted areas in Mitihani House? Who are they, and at whose behest were they working? Who knew what, and who was told about it?

We invite anybody with information to share with us in confidence, blog here for Kenya to help right this wrong.

In a face-saving move, the KNEC has recalled some exams results. Read that story in the Standard again and pay attention to little geopolitical details. Now, did you notice where the recalled results are coming from? N-Y-E-R-I. Well, one Mwizi Kibaki comes from Othaya in that same N-Y-E-R-I. How about Njiri's High School, is it in Turkana district? Kenyans, what will they do with them? Readjust the results based on what, or is it going to be like the case for Maragwa where the ECK allowed the returning officer was allowed to alter the figures from the exorbitant 115% turnout to the 'arbitrarily acceptable' 84%? Remember that this was done at the ECK, how that figure was arrived at is not really important, it is the kienyeji nature of running institutions that is worrying us.

What is it about these institutions which are run by the Kamba and scandals? ECK is under Kivuitu, ODM-K is under Maanzo and bandit veep Kalooser while the KNEC is chaired by one Prof. Raphael Munavu. We will not forget, shall we, that the PNU bureau of disinformation is led by the Disinformationsmeister Dr Alfred Goebbels Njoroge Mutua. Is it coincidence?