Education Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i. [Photo/Mwakilishi.com]
Blogger Rober Alai has slammed Education Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i few days after the release of this year's Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams.
Top candidate Goldalyn Kadiya, of St Anne Junior Lubao, Kakamega County scored 455 out of 500 marks, with 9,846 pupils surpassing the 400 mark.
Last year, the top candidate scored 437 marks. During the release of the results on Tuesday, CS Matiang’i noted that the pupil would not have made it among the 20 highest scorers in 2017.
However, Alaia has poked holes in the release of the exams, saying there were major marking mistakes since Matiang'i rushed to release them.
"Matiangi was desperate to release KCPE results early. Major mistakes in marking," Alai said, Thursday.
In some cases, he added "a whole county has students scoring the same marks in the same subject. We are playing with exams and turning it into an event. We need to ensure quality."
The examinations kicked off on Tuesday, October 31, with the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) saying the fast release of the results was because of automated Optical Mark Recognition machines that fast-tracked the marking process.
KNEC chairman George Magoha said the examination council bought 20 machines at a cost of Sh100 million to speed up the marking of scripts, reducing the work by 50 per cent.