The Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) has disclosed a surprising revelation: they mistakenly awarded incorrect marks to 133 candidates in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination. This discrepancy, acknowledged by Knec CEO David Njengere, came to light during the release of the examination results on November 23, 2023.
Mainly, the English and Kiswahili subjects presented significant challenges for the affected candidates, leading to dissatisfaction among several schools. Njengere revealed that Knec had been receiving appeals from these concerned schools, who reported discrepancies via the SMS code 40054.
After a meticulous review of these appeals, Knec identified 133 instances where adverse effects on candidates were found. Njengere reassured the public that swift action was taken to rectify these errors, resulting in immediate updates to the evaluations and reflecting precise assessments for the affected candidates.
Njengere not only highlighted misawarded marks but also underscored other anomalies: results were misaligned, and grades in Kiswahili appeared erroneously under the Kenyan Sign Language section. Furthermore, he identified cases where truncation errors occurred with grades in Science, Social Studies, and Religious Education—missing the expected plus (+) or minus (-) signs.
Njengere clarified that the errors were confined to SMS results, attributing them to configuration issues, and emphasized the accuracy of results displayed via the KNEC portal. In response, Knec promptly addressed discrepancies in SMS messages, notifying their service provider and resolving the issue immediately.
Njengere advised candidates, saying, “Visit your respective schools; collect the official provisional results slips—an action that ensures accuracy and reliability.” This proactive measure empowers candidates to review their results, raising any queries within the stipulated 30-day period.
It is crucial to note that the Ministry of Education released the 2023 KCPE examination results for a total of 1,406,557 candidates on November 23. An impressive score of 428 marks was achieved by the top-performing candidate.
