With just some few weeks remaining before the official kick off of national examinations, the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has announced on its new measures to ensure a secure distribution of examination materials to schools across the 47 counties.
According to circulars from the Knec seen by this writer, police will no longer have a direct role in keeping charge of the papers, even as a more strict procedure is implemented to seal off loopholes in distribution of materials to respective schools.
The Knec documents indicated that a total of 346 very strong double-locked metal containers whose keys shall only remain with education officials have already been distributed across all sub-county offices, with county commissioners being tasked to avail 24-hour security.
“All school heads will collect exam papers at 5am in the morning every day from these containers, which must be opened jointly by the sub-county education officials and an examinations official in the presence of a police officer,” read the circular.
The document further warned that only head teachers and sub-county education officers are to sign against the accountability documents, thus confirming that both the container and exam papers have never been tampered with in any way. The school heads will then be escorted by armed police officers to the respective exam centers.