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{
    "id": 731972,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/731972/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 465,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Aden",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 15,
        "legal_name": "Aden Bare Duale",
        "slug": "aden-duale"
    },
    "content": "was elected. I brought together the parents, teachers and the administrators of the schools and we sat and talked about this particular issue. It is very saddening to hear that some of the reasons why those examinations were being cancelled is because of certain teachers who were not happy being posted to that part of Kenya. Therefore, to show their anger and frustration, they just said: “We are angry with these people and this place. Therefore, let us say these exams were not done in a free and fair manner.” That affected the lives of very many people. It took a lot of time for me to engage with those teachers so that we could turn around that feeling and show them how critical it was to the lives of those young people whose results were cancelled without any particular mistakes being done. This piece of legislation brings in something that is very good. That is because once a candidate’s results were cancelled, it took them two years, at least, for them to be allowed to re- sit that exam. In my view, this is very unfair and unjust because two years is a very long time. For a 17 year old, when you say two years, that student is 19 years old and when you ask him to repeat Form Four again, the boy or girl will be 20 years old. By the time they wait for their results again, it will be another year. A student who could have started their university education at age 18 will now be forced to start their university education at age 21. This takes back the student about three years or more and that is very bad. Many of those students get so demoralised and leave school for good. Many of them left and never came back to education again. Unfortunately, some were even sucked up into this mess of insecurity and drugs. This piece of legislation says that should there be a report of where an irregularity might have happened, instead of KNEC taking the unilateral and unchallenged decision to just decide to cancel those exams and subject those students to those timelines that I have just mentioned now, some of them have been banned from sitting for those exams. Those students must be taken through fair administrative process and they must be allowed to sit before a tribunal to explain to them. I will tell you about some cases which I experienced at the time I was looking at those issues. A bunch of students had their exams results cancelled because they duplicated their work. This was the reason. Can I tell you that some of those students did not even sit in the same examination rooms? They were about three rooms apart and they were both accused of sharing and writing the same things. It cannot be. All that can happen when you give one entity, the KNEC, just the leeway to say: “We are cancelling these exams. We are not happy with this student. These two students duplicated.” However, when you bring in the issue of a tribunal that sits and actually verifies that those students did not even sit in the same room during the entire exam period, then you realize that, indeed, that will be a fair process for the student. I have always challenged KNEC and said: “How can an examination which is under your custody be stolen in the first place?” Before we punish the students, the culprit to begin with is KNEC itself. Those exams are sealed and they come when they are sealed. How can they be stolen? How are those exams leaked out to that young student who is out there? How will they have known? Theirs is only to have a fair guess by looking at the past papers for a few years and saying: “This question was not tested last year and it probably will be tested this year.” That is the kind of thing we did during our times and we managed, in a very fair way, to predict where the examinations or the examiners were likely to look at in the next exams. This particular piece of legislation deserves all the support. It certainly has my support. I am most impressed about the appeal tribunal and also about removing this unilateral decision of cancelling exams from KNEC before due process of fairness is followed. I support this Bill, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}