By Raisa Okwaras
Education CS George Magoha has fired a directive that is meant to bar students sitting for national examinations in Kenya from carrying large sums of hard money with them to their examination rooms.
This comes in after some students were caught with large sums of money in their pockets as they were heading to sit for their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) examinations, which entered day 2 today.
According to CS Magoha, frisking of students sitting for their KCSE exams should be done in a more intense manner to close all probable exam gaps. This comes after on Monday, March 14, two students in Nairobi were caught with smartphones a few minutes before sitting for their KCSE examinations. Luckily for them, the CS pardoned them but warned students and teachers against attempting to conduct any examination malpractices as they will face serious consequences.
“We shall allow them to take the exam. I want to warn any teacher who feels brave enough and opens the exam papers beforehand. We shall come for you,” said CS Magoha on Monday, March 14 while in Mombasa County.
While overseeing an exam exercise on Tuesday morning, education CS George Magoha insisted that barring students from entering KCSE examination rooms with large sums of money will go a long way in reducing chances of compromising the exam process.
“While we are frisking our students before they go to their classrooms, let us ensure that they don’t have large amounts of money in their pockets. We were able to track some students who had unnecessary large amounts of money in their pockets for reasons which were best known to them,” said the CS.
The CS went ahead to warn the center managers against having huge sums of money with them during examination hours as this will be an offense that will attract an arrest. He also stated that students who have money with them should have it kept safely at the center manager’s office and have it back upon completion of the examination.
“I am going to instruct the center managers together with the supervisors and invigilators that they should frisk the children very gently and any unreasonable amount of money found on them must be taken and kept in the center manager’s office until after the examination is complete and the student is going home,” he stated.
“I also ask the police to watch and check the center managers who carry hundreds of thousands of shillings during the examination process. They should actually handcuff such teachers immediately,” added CS Magoha.
The ongoing KCSE 2021 examination which has 831, 015 candidates sitting for it entered its second day today, March 15, 2022 and will run till its final day on April 1, 2022.
The original article was first shared by Citizen Digital.