Ministry of Education announced that they had noted malpractices in schools where teachers illegally transfer Grade Seven learners to Class 8 and register them as candidates.
Speaking on Monday, February 13, Education Permanent Secretary Belio Kipsang noted that the teachers in some primary schools were coordinating with parents in the illegal acts.
This enabled the students to skip the Competency-based Curriculum (CBC) and sit for the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination.
Kipsang highlighted six ways parents and teachers circumvented the Ministry’s guidelines.
Falsification of school records.
Parents and teachers were accused of tampering with school records to indicate that students were candidates.
Falsification of birth records and biodata of Grade Seven learners.
The guardians and tutors were also on the record for falsifying birth certificate numbers and dates of birth.
Attempts to change or obtain new birth certificates.
By obtaining new birth certificates, the parents would alter the legit information to make their children fit in the 2023 class eight class.
Generation of new Unique Personal Identification(UPI) for continuing learners.
Other schools had gone a notch higher to generate a new UPI number for the Grade 7 learners.
Presenting grade seven learners as Class 8 candidates
In other schools, students who transitioned from class six to junior secondary school were made to skip grade seven and registered directly as class eight students.
Facilitating transfers of grade seven learners into other schools and presenting them as class eight transfers.
The PS further noted that parents and teachers had worked together in other scenarios to transfer children who transitioned from class six to other schools where they would be registered as class eight pupils.
The government announced that action would be taken against any school found engaging in illegal practices.
Field officers were also asked to validate all registration data for KCPE and report any abnormal increase in KCPE candidature against 2022 enrollment.
The PS remarks came after Garissa Township Deputy County Commissioner Solomon Chesut raised the same issue.
“All those students who did the Grade 6 assessment exams are supposed to be in Junior Secondary schools. We have noticed that there are parents who are colluding with teachers to admit some of these students to class eight,” he noted.
He warned the teachers that they risked losing their jobs or facing jail terms for violating education rights.
“There is no way you can register a student from grade six to class eight. We have a list of some notorious schools and we have forwarded their names to the investigative agencies for further action,” he warned.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE
