Despite the government banning underage students from tackling national examinations, several of them sat for last year's Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.
According to the reports from the examination council, 9,789 candidates aged 16 and below sat for last year's papers were compared to 9,326 candidates in the year 2014.
The report indicated that Kisii county recorded the highest number of underage candidates at 689, followed by Bungoma, Kericho and Kakamega counties at 599, 499 and 376 respectively.
In 2014, Kisii was also leading with the highest number of underage candidates at 933.
Two years ago the government announced that underage students were not to be allowed to sit for the national examinations.
A total of 189,110 candidates aged 17 and 18 sat for the examination last year compared to 179,477 candidates in 2014.
While students aged 19 to 22 were 302,917 as that of 23 years stood at 22,765.