The 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) results will officially be released by Thursday this week at Mtihani House in Nairobi. This is according to the Kenya National Examinations Council, Knec.
The marking and analysis of the exams done in late October are now completed and awaiting release.
Marking of English Composition and Kiswahili Insha is what mostly derails the early release of the exams. However, this exercise ended on Friday last week to pave the way for the release of the results.
On Saturday evening KNEC CEO, Dr David Njengere presided over the closing ceremony for the KCPE English Composition and Kiswahili Insha marking exercise at St. George’s Girls Secondary School, Nairobi.
Dr Njengere commended the teachers (examiners) involved in the marking exercise for their great work in steering the KCPE exam from its inception to this moment of transition to the CBC curriculum.
“You, teachers, are the real heroes of the 8-4-4 system and we appreciate you. We now urge and depend on you to similarly run CBC assessment successfully,” he said.
At least 1,415,315 candidates sat for the KCPE exams while a total of 1,282,574 candidates sat for their Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA).
The KCPE and KPSEA exams began on October 30, 2023, and were completed on November 1, 2023.
KCPE candidates did Mathematics, English, English Composition, Kiswahili, Kiswahili Insha, Science and Social Studies.
In 2022 top KCPE candidate scored 431 marks. It was Otieno Lewis Omondi of St. Peters Mumias Boys Primary School.
The marking of the Insha and Composition papers was done manually by examiners.
However, the marking of multiple-choice questions (transcripts) was done by the modern Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) which electronically scores the papers.
The OMR captures marked data from candidates’ answer sheets using specialised scanning.
The machines work with a dedicated scanning device that shines a beam of light on the paper.
The contrasting reflection at predetermined positions on a page is used to detect marked areas as they reflect less light than the blank areas of the paper.
With the new machines, scripts are marked in batches of 100 and 200 sheets, unlike the previous technology, which took hours.
Basic Education Dr Belio Kipsang, had said that marking of the KCPE results will be completed early and results released soonest possible.
Speaking after visiting Naivasha Girls Secondary School to check on KCSE exams, the PS lauded headteachers for the work they had done during the national exams.
“We expect the results out early so that placement of students in form one can be done before Christmas so that parents have ample time to prepare,” he said.
In the 2022 KCPE exams, a majority of the candidates (50.2 per cent) scored between 200 and 299 marks out of 500.
Some 9,443 candidates scored over 400 marks, marking 0.01% of the candidature, while 307,756 others scored between 300 and 399 marks, making 24.94 per cent of this year’s class.
At the same time, the 100 to 199 mark bracket had 296,336 candidates (24.4%) while 724 candidates scored below 100 marks, which is 0.06% of the class.
Machogu said candidates will get results on their phones by sending their index number followed by the initials KCPE to code 20076. They will be charged Ksh. 25 per SMS.
For instance, if a candidate’s Index number is 123456789, they will send 123456789KCPE to 20076.