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{
    "id": 111252,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/111252/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 207,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Ongeri",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Education",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 124,
        "legal_name": "Samson Kegeo Ongeri",
        "slug": "samson-ongeri"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I wish to respond to Mr. Isaac Ruto’s question on the regulations barring candidates involved in examination irregularities for the next two years before sitting for the next examination. My Ministry is mandated to offer quality education by providing, promoting and co-ordinating lifelong education, training and research for Kenya’s sustainable development. To fulfill this mandate, my Ministry has to ensure that there is quality assessment of learning which is fair, valid and reliable for certification of the qualified candidates. Mr. Speaker, Sir, it is important that I make pertinent comments that examination results are the major determinants of access into the job market and into institutions of higher learning in Kenya. Given the very stiff competition for places, it is imperative that objectivity and fairness be the overriding concerns in the allocation of these limited places. Any practice, therefore, that threatens fairness and objectivity in examinations must be stamped out without hesitation. Cheating in examinations is one such practice and can be defined as claiming or appropriating more than one has a right to achieve in an examination. This may take the form of collusion, impersonation, pre-prepared notes and script cases among others. Mr. Speaker, Sir, cheating in examinations can, if undetected and unpunished, undermine one of the major functions of examinations which are to grade candidates according to their abilities. It can very quickly erode the confidence the public has in examinations if false grades are awarded. Cheating can also undermine values of honest candidates if it appears that dishonest candidates are the once being allocated places on the basis of grades obtained through cheating. Therefore, the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has put interventions in place to sensitize all stakeholders involved in the administration of examinations on the roles they are expected to play during the administration of examinations. The evil of examination dishonesty has been displayed through public campaigns, briefing sessions and mass media. It is not only that, we have spent considerable sums of money in the way of surveillance in order to ensure that these examinations are done in a very comfortable way. Fortunately, there has been a drop in cases of cheating from the previous last two years to a manageable level but we still want to drop it to a much lower level. Mr. Speaker, Sir, despite all these measures, we are now clear that after frisking, some candidates still manage to smuggle prepared notes and resorted to many other unorthodox methods of cheating in the classroom. I have examined the issue of the ban and noted that it was irregularly imposed. Subsequently, I have instructed the KNEC to withdraw the two-year ban with immediate effect and issue a circular to this effect."
}