The Adequacy of Kenya National Examination Councils’ Malpractice Penalties in Public and Private Secondary Schools in Kisii County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the Adequacy of Kenya National Examination Councils‟ Malpractice Penalties in Public and Private Secondary Schools in Kisii County, Kenya. This study employed ex post facto and survey research design. The target population comprised of 1119 subjects comprising of principals, invigilators and examination officers drawn from 317 public and 46 private secondary schools in Kisii County. A sample of 109 principals, 218 invigilators and 10 examination officials was selected through stratified random sampling to participate in the study. The study utilized questionnaires to collect data. The questionnaires were discussed with research supervisors and other experts to enhance their validity for their use in the study. A pilot study was conducted in eleven public and private secondary schools which is 10% of the sampled schools in Nakuru County. The instruments were tested for reliability and adapted after they scored 0.752 and 0.765 for the Invigilators‟ questionnaire and School Principals‟ questionnaire respectively. The study collected both qualitative and quantitative data. Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used with the help of SPSS to analyze quantitative data. Qualitative data was analyzed by use of descriptive analysis, by categorizing results into tables. The findings show that adequacy of KNEC based penalties, level of enforcement of KNEC rules, school governance and regulations by invigilators were critical factors contributing to the high level of examination cheating in Kisii County. The findings show that the current efforts put in place by KNEC to ensure compliance with the set rules and regulations to stop examination cheating in public and private secondary schools in Kisii County are not adequate. Following the findings, the study recommends that KNEC consider mobilizing resources to upscale its measures to check on examination cheating and resources to support use of modern technology to monitor KNEC examinations. The schools‟ management through the Ministry of Education should consider organizing prior assessments to check on compliance levels in respect to the set KNEC rules and regulations.