Principals of at least 38 Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs) in the country are collaborating to develop an effective e-assessment system as a strategy to enhance efficiency and reduce costs in the administration and management of internal tests.
Over time, these institutions have relied on pen, printers, and paper to set examinations and assess students, and even their recent low-key transition to electronic assessment has been riddled with challenges.
The debate is on how best institutions can leverage technology to effectively adopt modern technological trends—the main focus is on a system with Authoring, Digital Assessment, and e-marking modules.
Simply, a system that allows for the setting of tests allows the students to interact with it for assessment purposes and later permits examiners to mark.
The matter was canvassed during the Annual General Meeting of the Kenya Teachers Colleges Principals Association (KTCPA) at the Migori TTC on February 26-27, 2025.
According to Peterson Kabugi, the Head of e-assessment at the Kenya National Examinations Council, e-assessment is needed by every institution.
“It is a way of ensuring that we have a green environment because we do not have to use the paper where it is unnecessary. We want a cost reduction regarding printing papers, toners, and printer servicing within the institutions,” Mr Kabugi said at the AGM.
According to the KTCPA, each student buys two photocopier papers every year, which translates to about Sh1,200, a cool Sh1.2 million for an institution with 1,000 students.
KTCPA observed that most institutions perform toner replacements at a cost of about Sh300,000 every year, plus printer servicing fees.
“If the institutions can embrace e-assessment, then it means that those costs will be shelved once and for all,” emphasized Mr Kabugi.
He observed that the KNEC has been leveraging technology for the 4th year to assess the TTC students in their final examinations.
Embrace technology
“KNEC has been doing e-assessment for colleges for 4 years now. Mine is to urge these institutions to embrace technology for internal assessments equally,” he said.
KTCPA Chairman Wycliffe Wafula noted that all TTCs have since embraced e-assessment for their internal assessments, albeit with challenges, which necessitates the ongoing discourse.
“We no longer have any college doing manual internal assessments. We (individual TTCs) are at different stages, and, of course, we have not reached the level of KNEC, but in our small ways, we are doing it,” said Mr Wafula.
The use of technology for internal assessments in the TTCs has been experimented on the current second and third-year students, explained the Kamwenje TTC Principal.
“We love it. It is beautiful. We are in the age of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC). One of the competencies CBC promotes is literacy in ICT, and e-assessment is one huge achievement in attaining those competencies. We are going in that direction,” he added.
Migori TTC Principal Reverend John Chivile said that the challenge with the technology they are currently using is that it sometimes fails, especially at the most vital moments.
“On the e-assessment, we have had a problem when the electronic system fails. It once happened with the KNEC system. That is why we are looking at ways of incorporating better systems to improve,” said Reverend Chivile.
Maggie Kabira, the Managing Director of Arte Springs, a digital solutions company in the education space, informed the principals that embracing technology is the sure way to enhance efficiency and lower assessment costs.
“Most public colleges ask students to bring printing papers. That cost of printing papers alone can buy the system,” she challenged the principals.
Ms Kabira said that once an institution embraces technology, the rooms used to store the stacks of rim papers can be turned into something else.
However, the principals feared that acquiring the e-assessment system would still be very expensive, considering that most institutions have not had a smooth flow of capitation money from the treasury.
They said stopping students from bringing rim papers will not be easy, especially for the public TTCs, as it requires government approval.
Annual subscription fee
At Arte Springs, for instance, installing the e-assessment system would cost Sh1.8 million with an annual subscription fee of Sh100,000.
KTCPA observed that capitation for government institutions has been delayed this year, with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter disbursements yet to be affected.
Meanwhile, Mr Kabugi noted that KNEC intends to cascade the e-assessment to basic education.
“It is high time we started thinking about revolutionizing the assessment models in colleges and basic education.
The cost of distributing papers to different areas of the country can easily be reduced because of e-assessment,” he submitted.
E-assessment would further address environmental factors such as heavy downpours that sometimes hinder the smooth distribution of papers to some parts of the country.
The proof of concept for the basic education is ongoing, explained Mr Kabugi.
By Josiah Odanga
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