KNEC explains errors in KCPE exam results

The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) has come out to address discrepancies reported by some candidates in the just released 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results.

The council, in a statement to newsrooms on Saturday, noted that it had received appeals over some errors in results obtained through the short code 40054 that was provided by the Ministry of Education.

“It was brought to the attention of KNEC that results for some candidates had misalignment of the marks and grades in Kiswahili as they were placed at the Kenyan Sign Language,” read the statement from KNEC CEO Dr. David Njengere.

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

According to the examinations body, all results on its portal were accurate, hence the said errors only affected candidates who tried to accessed theirs through the SMS short code.

This, Dr. Njengere explained, was due to “configuration issues,” which he assured that the council has since raised with the SMS service provider and fixed promptly.

“KNEC also received queries from candidates with low marks in some of the subjects, mainly in English and Kiswahili,” stated the council boss.

“KNEC has reviewed all the appeals and found that there were 133 candidates affected. These cases have all been addressed and results for the affected candidates updated appropriately.”

Dr. Njengere further addressed viral reports of a school where all candidates scored 75 marks in Science, saying a deep review had found no signs of malpractice whatsoever conducted by the institution.

“Science is a multiple-choice question paper, thus making it possible for the candidates to get identical marks," the KNEC chief noted.

"Though this maybe assumed to be an examination irregularity, it is not adequate evidence for KNEC to sanction the results for candidates without a supporting report that cheating happened during the administration of examination.”

He further candidates to collect their result slips from their various schools and submit any appeals within the 30-day period as stipulated in the KNEC Rules of 2015 Legal Notice 131.