KCPE 2023 Results Contested In Court

The 2023 results of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) recently released by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) have been challenged in court.

A matter has been filed challenging the results in which the parents of a student from Set Green Hill Academy Mixed Day and Boarding and Junior School in Kisii argued that the candidate is dissatisfied with the way her papers were marked.

While terming the results as those that have caused their child mental stress, the parents want the court to stop KNEC from kick-starting the Form One placement exercise slated to begin on Tuesday, November 28.

The parents lamented that the 90-day period would be unreasonable if the placement exercise was allowed to commence.

Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) David Njegere. /CAPITAL GROUP

"....she does not understand why there is a marked variance between the marks scored by students at the school in the previous years and marks posted for the year 2023 in the same KCPE examinations as the said does not fall within a reasonable range," reads court papers.

The parents and student joined several of their counterparts who expressed their dissatisfaction with the results released by Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Ezekiel Machogu on Thursday, November 23.

On Sunday, November 26, parents from a school in Kitengela disgruntled by their children's KCPE results protested outside KNEC offices in Nairobi arguing that the results awarded to their children were incorrect.

"To me as a parent representing my peers, I believe that this is a sincere injustice to the children of Kitengela International as indicated here and also to the children of other schools in this nation,” one parent questioned why the school known to perform well in past KCPE exams recorded a dismal performance this year.

KNEC at the same time called for a crisis meeting to discuss the controversial results, a day after it explained why it confessed to releasing some results containing errors a day following the release of the KCPE results.

In the statement dated Saturday, November 25, KNEC acknowledged receiving appeals from some affected schools which were dissatisfied with their results as received by the institutions and the candidates via the SMS code 40054.

The council divulged that some candidates had misaligned marks and graded in Kiswahili as they were placed in the Kenyan Sign Language.

"There were also cases where the grades in Science and Social Studies and Religious Education were truncated incorrectly and were missing the plus (+) and minus (-) signs as expected.

"The error affected only the SMS results due to configuration issues, as the results in the KNEC portal are accurate. KNEC notified the SMS service provider, and the error in the text messages was resolved immediately," KNEC explained.

The council also revealed that it had received queries from candidates with low marks in some of the subjects, mainly in English and Kiswahili.

"KNEC has reviewed all the appeals and found that there were one hundred and thirty-three (133) candidates affected. These cases have all been addressed, and results for the affected candidates have been updated appropriately," added the council.

The KNEC Rules of 2015 Legal Notice 131 on the marking of examinations, release of results and certification, Rule 27, provides for candidates/schools to lodge appeals for review of the examination results to the Council in writing within thirty days from the date of release of the examination results.