Machogu Announces Release Date for KCSE 2023 with New Grading System

Finally the official timeline for releasing the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exam results is known.

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu in an exclusive interview has said the KCSE results will be out the second week of January 2024.

This means the results will be released between 7th January and 13th January 2024. During this time primary and secondary schools will have reopened.

The 2023 KCSE results will be available through the portal Kenya Education Management Information System (KEMIS) unveiled by CS Machogu.

“We are done with the marking. What we are currently doing is compiling the marks, verification and validation. You know it’s quite a process. So that by the end of the day, we release credible results,” said Machogu in an exclusive interview.

The marking of the 2023 KCSE exams happened in the following marking centres;
1) Starehe Girls Centre
2) Kiambu High School
3) Machakos Girls
4) Machakos TTC
5) Alliance Girls
6) Lang’ata High School
7) Thika High School
8) Limuru Girls
9) Nairobi School
10) Mangu High
11) State House Girls
12) Sunshine School
14) Moi Forces Academy Nairobi

The 903,260 KCSE candidates will also benefit from a new grading system aimed at increasing the number of students joining universities. The new grading structure was unveiled in August.

The grading system recommended by the Presidential Working Party, on Education Reforms reduces the number of compulsory subjects and focuses on those they are strong in.

The students will be graded on their performance in two compulsory subjects, that is, Mathematics and any language including English, Kiswahili, or National Sign Language.

This is a departure from the current system in which students are graded on seven subjects (English, Mathematics, Kiswahili, two sciences and two others).

This will result in more students achieving better overall scores to qualify for post-secondary education.

The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) has done away with the previous system where five subjects were mandatory, a method expected to increase the number of candidates qualifying for their upper education.

“Even the entry grade for University Education, the numbers will increase because last year we had 173,000 Kenyans out of 887,000 getting C+ and above, that is university entry which is 19 per cent, regionally Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania the percentage of people going to university is about 30 per cent,” Machogu explained.

The CS said he is worried that last year’s candidates almost 40 per cent which is around 354,000 had D, D- and E.

The CS said he is worried that last year’s candidates almost 40 per cent which is around 354,000 had D, D- and E.

Mr Machogu said PWPER found that the current system is disadvantageous to some learners whose best subjects are not taken into account if they are not within the cluster.

“Previously compulsory subjects included Mathematics, English Language, Kiswahili and two Sciences.

But this time round, we will only have two compulsory subjects that are Mathematics and English Language, Kiswahili or National Sign Language. We are doing this to allow learners to explore subjects they are good at,” he explained.

He said learners are gifted differently with some good in either Social Sciences, Arts and Sports, and Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

However, the CS said thanks to the Competency-Based Curriculum, learners will have three pathways to pursue in Senior School including Social Sciences, Arts and Sports, and Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

The CS assured Kenyans that the KCSE results will be credible.

This is after the government changed the mode of collection of national examination papers administered to the 2023 KCSE candidates.

Centre Managers and Exams Supervisors for KCSE picked the exams twice daily from the examination containers, a departure from before when the papers were picked once a day and stored in the office leading to early exposure.

However, CS Machogu said his Ministry in conjunction with a multi-agency team led by Interior and ICT counterparts managed to minimise early exposure through new tough guidelines.

Some rules included remapping schools to facilitate easier access to the nearest storage container which was increased by 82 bringing the total to 576, allowing only secondary school teachers to invigilate, supervise and examine the tests.
“This time round we did something which has never been done. In the afternoon paper where we used to have major issues, we made sure it was picked separately from the morning exam. However, it came with additional expense,” said Mr Machogu.
However, the CS said the new guidelines paid off through curbing cheating.

“We were able to control any malpractice. But most likely the latest we are releasing KCSE is the second week of February,” disclosed the CS during an exclusive interview.

He expressed confidence that the exams were marked fairly.
“I am 100 per cent confident that the test was marked fairly. This time we increased the number of marking centres from 35 to 40 such that the working conditions were better than before,” he added.

Other measures included an increment of the number of examiners in each subject to ensure they do not start marking at 4am. He said the examiners were told to be flexible and relaxed during the exercise.

Mr Machogu said his ministry ensured the examiners both for KCPE and KCSE were paid on time after the government released Sh1 billion.

“So this time we have done better than any other year because even the examiners were paid on time and marking was done properly,” he insisted.

—Courtesy Education Arena 

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