Nandi East Deputy County Commissioner (DCC) Leonard Mgute said that five students failed to turn up for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) that kicked off yesterday. Confirming the incident at the close of business for day one, Mgute noted that the parents of the five candidates had relocated from Nandi to various parts of the country, but they have started investigations to determine why the candidates could not turn up to sit for their KCPE exams. ‘Monday, we recorded five absenteeism cases in Nandi Hills Township Primary in the KCPE category. Upon preliminary investigation, we found out that their parents had relocated from Nandi; however, we are yet to conduct further investigation to determine why the candidates could not turn up for their national examinations,’ explained DCC Mgute. He also noted that three KCPE candidates who were admitted to the Nandi Hills Sub County Hospital due to sickness were forced to write their papers at the ward, adding that they had provided the necessary security to ensure they wrote their exams smoothly. The administrator further noted that they had experienced challenges while transporting examinations to various centers due to poor roads, adding that the roads became impassable as a result of heavy rains that were experienced on Sunday evening. ‘We experienced a challenge in transporting examination papers to various centers in the interior of Nandi East Sub County. The roads were rendered impassable due to heavy rains experienced on Sunday evening. We delivered the papers late, resulting to the late commencement; however, we have resolved to start the transportation of the remaining papers early enough to ensure candidates start writing them as per the stipulated time,’ he said In terms of security, DCC Mgute assured that he had provided the necessary security for the exercise to run smoothly, noting that each examination center has been allocated two security officers. According to the DCC, Nandi East sub-county has a total of 106 KCPE centers with a total of 4,248 candidates comprising 2,173 boys and 2,075 girls, whereas in the KPSEA category there are 107 centers with a total of 3,526 candidates comprising 1,835 boys and 1,691 girls. In addition, five private candidates are sitting for KCPE at the Nandi Hills Township primary, of which two are men and three are women.

Source:Kenya News Agency