The 2024 KCSE administration is over and we now turn to marking. The whole issue of national examination administration and marking is an extremely risky exercise. It is sad that the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) coerces teachers into such servitude, pays them peanuts after a very long time, then punishes them arbitrarily.
This is against the labour laws of the land and Article 30 of the Constitution of Kenya which without limitations protects individuals from slavery or servitude and forced labour. Teachers should know that KNEC is not a department of TSC and vice versa.
Teachers can only offer services to KNEC willingly as contracted professionals (CPs) and anything short of that should be litigated in a court of law. In as much as I unequivocally don’t support cheating in any type of examination, KNEC’s bad manners of preying on innocent professional teachers must be called out.
The national exam body must come clear on why it retired a good number of examiners without giving them reasons for doing so or giving them any courteous prior notice. The teachers have refused to believe that this blanket punishment of teachers and examiners is hinged on integrity issues related to KCSE administration or otherwise.
We know that the mass retirement of examiners is simply one of the normal knee-jerk reactions by KNEC to run away from the truth while camouflaging its glaring ineptitude.
KNEC rolls out trainings of examiners each year at a minimum fee of Ksh10,000 but ends up not inviting the trained examiners for the actual marking exercise where they can patriotically serve their nation, grow professionally and earn something from their investment.
Not inviting the examiners to practise their trade and hone their skills is akin to robbery without violence. If KNEC is broke and unable to fund its operations, it should seek funding from the National Treasury and not from the teachers who are paid peanuts by their employer, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
It is extremely inhuman for KNEC to use and dump examiners who have diligently served it in various capacities over time with utmost integrity. The examiners normally work overtime (no overtime paid) from 5:00am to 10:00pm daily for two weeks or so, reside in student hostels and sleep in the narrow beds and mattresses, and are finally paid peanuts which comes after several months. This must change.
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On the administration of exams, KNEC has been posting teachers as supervisors or invigilators to various examination centres (schools) and expect them to frisk the candidates inside out without caring about gender. Definitely there are some parts of the candidates’ bodies the invigilators may not reach and may be in for a national condemnation for being overzealous if they do so without finding any contraband.
Furthermore, without the use of any electronic detectors, these exam supervisors and invigilators are supposed to smell out and detect any hidden electronic gadget the candidates may be having!
I suggest that apart from providing the steel containers for the safe keeping of the exam materials, KNEC should also provide electronic metal detectors in every exam centre for purposes of frisking the candidates.
We are in an era of technology and must use modern ways of doing things. Teachers are trained to teach and will never be metal detectors!
Yet they must refuse to be used. They must be ready to let go of KNEC as they demand for their rights. That’s the moment the exam body will appreciate their value.
Or simply, let KNEC use the disciplined forces to administer the national examinations.
By Leonard Wajewa Oronje
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