2012 KCSE results due this Friday

By OLIVE BURROWS | February 26, 2013

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 26 – The 2012 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination results will be released on Friday.

The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) Chief Executive Officer Paul Wasanga says they are finalising plans to release the results.

At the release of the 2012 KCPE results last month, the outgoing Education Minister Mutula Kilonzo said students had performed better than in 2011 and 2010 in spite of numerous disruptions to the education calendar.

“In 2012, a total of 416,900 candidates scored above 250 marks representing 51.35 percent of the candidates who sat for the examinations compared to 48.26 in the year 2011 and 49.38 in the year 2010,” he said.

Both the 2012 KCSE and KCPE exams had to be postponed by three weeks following a three week teacher’s strike in September of 2012.

Students in the coastal region faced exceptional challenges in the lead up to 2012 national examinations with the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) threatening to interrupt the examinations in October and following clashes in the Tana Delta region that forced students away from their homes and schools.

Incidents of cheating in 2012 were also significantly reduced compared to 2011 in spite of the two top scoring students in 2011 getting 442 and the top three students in 2012 scoring 430 out of a possible 500 marks.

“There was a decrease of 90.99 percent in the number of candidates who were involved in examination irregularities as compared to 2011,” Mutula said.

Kilonzo and outgoing Prime Minister Raila Odinga were also impressed by the increase in the number girls who sat the 2012 KCPE exams compared to years passed.

“KCPE examination gender parity has nearly been achieved nationally as it stood at 51.2 percent boys and 48.9 percent girls in 2012 which is the closest we have been towards achieving gender parity in KCPE examinations in 10 years,” Mutula pointed out.

The number of students called to public secondary schools following the 2012 KCPE exam was 16,165, out of about 800,000 who sat for it, up from 4,517 who sat for the 2011 KCPE examination.

“The number of national schools has therefore grown from 18 to 78 and they have now also given them the requisite financial resources,” the Education Permanent Secretary, George Godia, announced at the beginning of February.

The 16,615 were expected to report to their respective schools by Monday and will take a week long mid-term break beginning Thursday as public schools will act as voting centres during the March 4 General Election.