Kenya National Union of Teachers Masaba branch has welcomed the decision by education CS Fred Matiang'i to order punishing of individual students who engaged in KCSE 2015 examination malpractices.
Matiangi had indicated that examination centres were not affected and insisted only over 5,000 students had their examination results cancelled.
Speaking moments after the results were released on Thursday, branch deputy secretary general James Oteki termed the move ‘phenomenal’, adding that examination centres affected previously suffered from a sin committed by individual students.
“As Knut, we don’t support exam malpractice and we condemn in with strongest terms possible. The decision to punish individual students is absolutely phenomenal because in the past examination centers were help culpable. This even led to subjecting entire school to scrutiny,” he said.
He also said the move will safeguard the reputation of specific schools since the examination initially indicated institutions involved in the malpractices as a whole.
“Our institutions will regain their reputation that had been compromised in the past due to some specific cases of malpractices. It’s good for the individuals to take responsibility and not the whole institution. Sometimes back schools were not even ranked juts because of specific cases,” he added.
But Oteki urged Knec to also take responsibility over the examination malpractices saying it has a prime role to combat the menace.
“The examination council knows people who set exams and it’s ridiculous that the exams can leak in their presence. They should take prime responsibility because leakage is done by their officials,” he said.