A few years back, national exam papers were being sold on the streets, millions of shillings changing hands under a well-established criminal network.
When Mercy Karogo was posted to the Kenya National Examinations Council in 2016, she faced very strong resistance.
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The cartels that were masters of the distribution of the leaked papers accused them of selling fake exams, saying they were genuine. Ms. Karogo’s duty was to wipe out cartels involved in the underworld deals involving secondary Principals, Class teachers, Parents and rogue Council Officials Officials.
With 2022 beginning, it will be a trying moment for David Njeng’ere as he takes over from Karogo. Before her entry into Knec it was claimed that three cartons filled with empty KCSE certificates had gone missing from the council headquarters.
With no recovery, Karogo said the suspicion has always been that they ended up on River Road in Nairobi, home of fake educational certificates. “These are certificates with genuine serial numbers and a casual glance won’t reveal that they are fake. Only names needed to be put in and anyone who didn’t verify with Knec would never tell they weren’t genuine,” she said.
Ms Karogo said a thorough investigation by the council has revealed how millions of shillings were collected by the cartel from private and public schools to facilitate the smuggling of exam papers from police stations and council rooms.
In some schools, exam papers were snatched through fences from where they were collected by subject teachers a few hours before the exam and students were given coaching .
The leaked material found its way from police stations where they were stored in safe custody in preparation for the month-long exam.
Ms Karogo, now retired, says she implemented radical changes to replace the once scandal-ridden council. She said that with the help of insiders and high-ranking government officials led by then-education CS Fred Matiangi and Prof George Magoha, she managed to plug the loopholes, but created many enemies.
The new model involved deploying exam safes as shipping containers in all sub-county offices. The keys to the containers will be kept only by a series of high-ranking education, administration and security personnel. High ranking national officials will witness the opening of containers in the counties. In 2016, Dr. Matiangai began monitoring the distribution of exam papers before 5 a.m. at Muranga, where he found a team led by John Elungata, who is now the Coast Regional Coordinator.
Ms. Karogo said that the examination system is now intact for the foreseeable future.
She said that the council has worked to reduce the exam marking period and police officers man exam containers.
“To have access to the container, the deputy county director of education and the deputy county commissioner have to open ,” said Ms Karogo, who retired last year.
She said the double locking system has helped in taming the cartels as paper pickers are better scrutinized and their details are fully recorded. Seeing this trend as an avenue for malpractice, the council reduced the packing of additional test papers in containers.
Ms. Karogo said that during her two-year tenure, DCI officials used to visit regularly to check the certificates of persons applying for senior positions.
Professor Magoha, speaking at Murang’a last week, said the systems guarding the examination material are intact.
“The cartels can continue with their business, but there will be no leakage,” Magoha said last week during the installation of CBC classes in Gathinja, Gituto and Kahiya schools.
University lecturer Charles Mwangi said the integrity of the exam is reflected in fewer cases of students changing schedules.
He said that between 2010 and 2015, many students registered for medicine and engineering were switching to less demanding courses.
