Parents of class eight candidates in Mwala, Machakos County have said they are unable to beat the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) deadline.
They said due to slow work at the Machakos registrar of births offices, most of them won't be able to beat the deadline issued by the Education Ministry.
Led by Susan Mueni, a Kabaa resident, the parents said most of them had not acquired the document despite the one month grace period given by the ministry.
"Yes we applied but whenever we go to check we are told to wait. We are wondering, time is elapsing and we are yet to receive the certificates," Mueni said.
Mueni said the government should devolve birth certificates issuance and other related services since concerned offices in the county lack adequate staff.
"How do they expect two or three people to serve thousands of parents at ago, we should be able to access these services in sub county levels to ease the backlog," Mueni said.
Mueni said the government should again extend the deadline by one month to create time for the processing of the certificates.
"It's not our fault that we can't beat the deadline up to now, the government should have made an arrangement to ease the acquisition of these certificates," she said.
Mueni said only a miracle can enable some of the parents beat the given deadline.