Nairobi — 25 candidates from a school located at Kakuma Refugee camp in Turkana were on Tuesday found in possession of mobile phones and cash following a routine Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams check up by the sub-county security committee team.
Police say that the officials who were at Somali Bantu Secondary school noticed what they termed “unusual activities at room number 20” before they decided to conduct a search in what is suspected to be a case of exam malpractice.
“They found one student with two Four Figure Elementary Mathematical Table with calculation writing on it. This prompted the team to conduct search on all candidates of a total of 506,” Police said.
They also questioned the invigilator of the examination room in question and the center manager.
“All the mobile phones were scrutinized and most of them had Mathematical paper 2 and English paper 2 which was yet to be done and money have been kept as exhibits,”
The students were allowed to seat for their next paper as authorities commence investigations on the matter.
Police say that the students will be arrested and escorted to Kakuma police station after exams for further interrogation and action.
This incident comes two days after Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said the government has been able to dismantle the cartel that is involved in examination cheating in the country.
Speaking on Monday morning, Magoha warned that the government is closely monitoring some parents and teachers who are actively trying to engage in examination malpractice.
He said they will be ‘dictatorial’ to teachers and individuals found in examination cheating.
“I want to warn that any teacher who feels that he or she is brave enough to open, particularly the second paper, we shall know where you are and come for you,” warned Magoha.
He added, “We will not have mercy for the people whom we have arrested. We shall be quite dictatorial for the sake of our children because we must protect them.”
He was speaking in Mombasa at the Nyali deputy county commissioner’s office, where he supervised the distribution and monitoring exercise of the first day’s KCSE examination materials.