An Assessment of the Management of Kcse Examination and Its Influence on Irregularities among Students: A Case of Secondary Schools in Mandera County, Kenya

Abstract

Irregularities in examinations at all levels including internationally,, regionally and locally  have become a major concern for all the major stakeholders in education including the policy makers, students, teachers, political leaders and the general society. A number of mitigation measures and strategies have been put in place in the past including formulation and enactment of the law specifically geared towards eliminating examinations malpractice. While releasing results for KCSE 2011, the then, Minister for Education, Professor Sam Ongeri in his speech noted that examination irregularities is a threat to the credibility of our national examination and is a major concern to the Ministry of education adding that 151 examinations centers cheated. The study focused on the roles of the various examination stakeholders such as parents, students, supervisors, invigilators, examination officers among others in as far as their contributions to examination malpractice is concerned. This study adopted the triangulation design which enabled the researcher to obtain different but complementary data on the topic.n. The target population of this study was 33 secondary schools distributed among the six districts of Mandera county, that is, Mandera East, Mandera West, Mandera Central, Mandera North, Banisa and Lafey. The sample of the study comprised of teachers, head teachers, examination officials and forms four students in 10 public secondary schools in Mandera County. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview guides. Using a simplified descriptive statistical data was analyzed and the results were presented using the tables of frequency distribution, graphs and charts.  Bringing pre-prepared answers to examination halls emerged as one of the most common form of examination irregularity. It was also established that students copy from each other during national examinations. The study recommended that all examination procedures, right from setting to sitting of the examinations, should be observed. Situations that students find themselves in should be detected so that proper guidance and counselling could be provided to avoid stressful environments during examinations.

Keywords: Management, K.C.S.E, Examination irregularities, Strategies