Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i has said the Ministry is ready for the national examinations and has urged the electoral body IEBC to hold the presidential election a week before the exams commence. “We are ready to begin the exams. Oral papers and papers done by the visually impaired children start on 23rd October and the rest of the papers will follow thereafter,” he said concerning KCSE exams.
“KCPE is scheduled to be done on 1st and 2nd November, and the day before, which will be on 31st October, we shall have rehearsals,” said Matiang’i, “As a result of the presidential re-run we have requested IEBC to consider doing this before 17th of October. We need a week or two earlier to make sure schools which will be used in the polls are safe and secure.” He said he has already talked to the IEBC chair and has even sent him a letter to address the situation.
According to Education CS Matiang’i, everything that needs to be done is in place, including the preparation of examiners, training, and identification of centres where marking will be done, “Mounting national exams is usually a huge exercise, it’s not a just matter of children going to the exam room, it takes a long time to prepare,” he said.