Candidates have invented new dirty tricks of cheating in Form Four national examination whose results were released on Monday.
Some schools recruited university students and former Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) qualifiers to resit exams with the aim of boosting their performance index.
Other candidates collected money with the intention of buying examination papers while some school heads arranged for other people to impersonate their candidates.
Releasing the 2010 KCSE results on Monday, Education minister Sam Ongeri announced that results of 534 candidates were cancelled due to cheating. It was the least figure of cheating cases over the past 10 years. That was a drop from the 1,171 candidates whose results were nullified in 2009.
“This is an encouraging turn of events and I thank all those who have participated in the fight against this vice,” Prof Ongeri said of the reduction in cases of cheating.
He attributed the reduction to the involvement of the spy agency, National Security Intelligence Service, police and provincial administration.
“It is important that we continue in this spirit to win the war.”
But the minister spoke of disturbing cases of cheating involving candidates, parents and teachers.
Some candidates, he said, defied the school administration and “collected money in advance with the intention of purchasing examination papers”.
Some parents facilitated cheating by bringing mobile phones for their girls in boarding schools during the prayer days ahead of the start of the examinations.
He mentioned the headteacher of Ruiru St Triza Academy who allegedly entered an examination room without permission when the examination was in progress and placed a mathematical table with prepared notes on the desk of one of the candidates.
But the case was intercepted by the invigilator, Prof Ongeri said.
In another case, the proprietor of John Okongo Secondary School and principal, Kebaroti Secondary School organised for impersonation in their schools.
“This impersonation was organised so as to assist the daughter of the proprietor who was a candidate in the same school,” he said.
He said the headteacher of Rigoma Secondary School tried to bribe an official of the Kenya National Examinations Council but was apprehended by the police and charged in court.
“Such cases are very disturbing to me,” Prof Ongeri said, asking: “Why should adults go to such lengths to commit irregularities?”
He praised teachers and the public that passed useful information to Knec to give leads on the cheats.
Prof Ongeri said it was unfortunate that parents still flocked private schools that were ill-equipped leaving well equipped public schools at their doorstep.
“Some other institutions use unorthodox methods to attain good results,” he said. He said some schools paid university students or former KCSE candidates who performed well to re-sit so as to boost their performance index. These candidates were referred to as “boosters”.
He said severe disciplinary action would be taken against those involved.rof Ongeri also said some headteachers continued to register candidates with foreign qualifications without equating them to the Kenyan education system, which was against examination regulations.
He said results of 134 candidates would be withheld because their headteachers did not submit candidates’ foreign certificates for equation to the Kenyan system by the Knec.
“Any student seeking admission into our secondary schools should have had the required years of instruction for his/her foreign qualification to be considered as equivalent to our primary education system which is eight years,” he said.
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