Machogu Acknowledges Error In Raila’s KCPE Expose
Machogu Acknowledges Error In Raila’s KCPE Expose. CS Machogu’s education came to light after ODM leader Raila Odinga declared that the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) had awarded a tender to a local company to print the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE).
He also challenged Odinga, adding that tenders for printing, coding and shipping are awarded annually and Kenya can also print its own papers.
“We have not terminated anyone’s contract. A contract is signed every year,” he explained.
Despite refuting Raila’s claim that the tender awarded to a British company was canceled in favor of a Kenyan company based along Mombasa Road, he admitted that the release of the exams was marred by minor errors.
Speaking before the education committee in the CS parliament on Thursday, she attributed the mistakes to the company hired to manage the QR code used to transmit the results.
“As a CS, I learned a lesson because basically you can see that as a ministry everything was fine. Someone who we can describe as an outsider was given the contract but he didn’t really fit and didn’t meet the required standard. In future, when we release the KCSE examination, we will not be able to use the same service provider,” Machogu stated.
However, he still maintained that the results were factual, stating, “The Ministry did not rush to release the 2023 KCPE results. We did due diligence in marking, verification and validation before releasing the exam and releasing the results.”
He further elaborated that even though KNEC incorporated quality control in all stages of the exams, which was the last year of the exams, some errors got out of hand and were dealt with immediately after the results were released.
With the help of the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT), the authority consulted on a forensic audit of the 2023 KCPE results after 1,043 complaints were filed, and so far 871 have been resolved.
Meanwhile, in the case of some students receiving exam results for papers they did not pass, Machogu attributed it to manual entry of marks into the system as the office allowed unregistered candidates to mark this year’s papers.
In his defence, KNEC has seen an overall improvement in curbing exam leaks compared to previous years and exam security codes have not been breached as claimed by ODM leader Raila Odinga.
“There were problems with the transportation and packaging of papers because the system was not secured due to social media and advanced technology,” PS Belio Kipsang, who accompanied the CS, explained to the committee.