National Youth Service service men and women are stranded in Machakos County after Education CS George Magoha barred them from participating in monitoring the ongoing KCSE examinations.
The officers who had been ferried to Machakos to compliment police officers in offering security during the examinations were turned away by Magoha on Tuesday.
The CS was surprised to find the service men and women waiting to receive examinations when he arrived at a Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) examinations container in Machakos Town. He officiated the opening of the container located at the Machakos sub-county director of education office at exactly 6.00am.
Magoha said no NYS service man or woman should be involved in monitoring the examinations. He however insisted that each examination centre must be secured by at least two armed police officers.
He addressed the press outside the Machakos sub-county director of education shortly after opening the container.
Magoha added, “We are not crazy to insist on this. As I speak to you, there are centres in Northern part of this country where the second paper sometimes is tampered with. And this emphasizes the need to have at least two police officers to ensure that one of the policeman is constantly with the examinations. Since I have been assured that police officers are there, we must have a minimum of at least two police officers per centre.”
He said up to now they were firmly in control of the examinations.
“In order to continue to reaffirm this control, then we must be extra vigilant. We are also aware that people are also trying to peddle fake papers. We are also aware that there are still attempts to get people to sit the examinations,” Magoha said.
He said the integrity of the second paper was going to be their focus.
“Let me warn those people who want to destroy our children especially in refugee camps where they think that they have access to do whatever they want that we shall tame them. In the event that you succeed to do something that is not reasonable, our teachers who mark those papers will find out and condemn these children for no good reason, ” Magoha said.
He told examinations monitors to actively monitor the examinations.
“I want to challenge and judge all the monitors that they are not flower girls, they are supposed to be actively monitoring, assuming that everybody is not trusted so that we continue ensuring integrity of the examinations.”
Magoha said the government was spending too much money on the monitors.
He added, “It is not your duty just to be present in the school, you better check and confirm. Nobody should have access to the examination halls including the centre managers unless there’s very good reason.”