The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC )has cancelled over 370,000 KCPE and KCSE student registrations over possible collusion in use of fake birth certificates.
According to the examinations body, the council detected birth certificate errors after the registration exercise, informing the decision to deregister the students.
The Standard reported that parents and headteachers in some schools might have colluded to use fake birth certificates to register the candidates for the 2019 national examinations.
Statistics from KNEC indicate that 1.78 million candidates were registered to sit for this year’s national examinations. Out of the numbers, primary schools had the highest number of irregular cases leading to the cancellation of 342,916 candidates’ registrations.
On the other hand, the council questioned 28,713 candidate registrations in secondary schools leading to deregistration.
According to the KNEC data, only 746,755 candidates have validly been registered to sit KCPE examinations while only 670,222 candidates in secondary school can sit for the national exams.
Further, the statistics expose Meru as the county with the highest cancellation cases, with 23,806 candidates in primary and 3,646 in secondary schools.
On the other hand, Marsabit has the least cancellation cases, with only 45 deregistered, all in primary schools.
KNEC Chief Executive Officer Mercy Karogo revealed that most of the anomalies that led to deregistration happened during the verification exercise.
According to Karogo, most parents and candidates didn’t participate in the verification exercise as expected.
Some manipulated the birth registration data to register candidates.
“Some just entered zeroes while others entered some funny digits. We detected all these and cancelled their registrations,” she said.
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Further, a report tabled in parliament last week by outgoing Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed revealed that duplication of birth certificate numbers and typing errors of entry numbers were some of the challenges the ministry had faced on data management.
The council has now stated that the affected candidates will not be able to sit for their final examinations later in the year unless the details are rectified and action taken against those behind the mess.
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