Reports have emerged online of both teachers and Kenyans crying and shocked that the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) is set to pay 400 shillings per day to teachers who will supervise the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).
Given that the KCPE exam will take at least three days, each teacher supervising it will go home with at least 1,200 shillings, the money he/she will have to wait for at least six months to be paid. Some teachers say they have declined the offer to supervise the same.
At the moment, the value of 1,000 shillings has dropped to 430 shillings. If every teacher is paid 400 shillings per day, then that is equivalent to 172 shillings per day, money that cannot even buy a packet of Unga for the said teacher to come back the following day.
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KNEC has not commented on these reports, leaving them to speculations. However given how KNEC has treated teachers who supervise exams before, the current reports might not be further from the truth. Many teachers will take up the offer due to poverty and the high cost of living.
During the last Kenya Certificate for Primary Education (KCSE), KNEC delayed paying teachers who marked the exam for more than 10 months. Teachers were forced to camp at KNEC offices in protests before cash was released. Nobody has ever been held liable.
The current exams, both KCPE and KCSE are the final national examinations under the 8-4-4 education curriculum. The country has since crossed over into the Competency-based Curriculum (CBC), a curriculum that not even teachers understand how it works.
President William Ruto, during campaigns, promised to review the whole CBC thing but when he won the elections and became President, he forgot everything about it.
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