The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) has introduced new guidelines for the recruitment of supervisors and invigilators for this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams, aiming to enhance transparency and accountability in the examination process.
KNEC now requires all supervisors, invigilators, and centre managers to declare any vested interests in the exam centres they are posted to.
This new rule ensures that no one with a potential conflict of interest will oversee the national examinations.
For the first time, only secondary school teachers will be eligible to serve as both supervisors and invigilators.
Previously, supervisors were high school teachers while invigilators were drawn from primary schools.
All individuals selected for these roles must be registered in the KNEC’s CP2 system to manage the national exams and assessments, and their claims will only be processed through this system.
Additionally, supervisors and invigilators will no longer be assigned to the same examination centre for the entire exam period.
Instead, KNEC has implemented a rotation system where supervisors will be moved on a weekly basis.
Upon rotation, they will be required to prepare detailed handover notes for their successors.
Furthermore, no supervisor or invigilator will be assigned to a centre they have worked at for the last two consecutive years.
For centres serving learners in the Stage-Based Pathway, the teachers themselves will invigilate their own students.
KNEC has also mandated that there be one invigilator for every 10 students.
However, no supervisors or centre managers will be deployed to oversee the Kenya Integrated Learning Assessment (KILEA) centres.
Centre managers, who are responsible for managing the daily operations of the exam centres, will need to ensure that the supervisors and invigilators assigned to their centre report to work and sign in daily.
In an effort to streamline the logistics of exam materials, hosted centres will have their own centre managers, while the hosting centre manager will be responsible for collecting and returning examination materials from the designated containers.
To prevent recruitment challenges, sub-counties experiencing issues are encouraged to contact KNEC at si@knec.ac.ke for assistance.
These new directives come in the wake of KNEC’s ongoing efforts to curb exam irregularities and maintain the integrity of Kenya’s national examinations.
By rotating supervisors, requiring vested interest declarations, and strengthening accountability measures, KNEC hopes to ensure a more transparent and secure examination process in 2024.
