Yesterday the marking exercise of the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) was momentarily halted at St. Francis Girls Mang’u High School located in Gatundu North.
More than 1,000 examiners who were marking from the station downed tools on Monday night claiming that they had been affected by harsh working conditions and poor pay.
The KCSE Examiners complained that their Chief Examiner had made tough marking requirements including the adoption of harsh policies and protracted bureaucracies that hindered their work.
They also claimed that the rates they are being paid were low per script whem compared to those grading other subjects like Kiswahili.
According to them, CRE examiners only earn Kes. 55 for every paper they mark while assessors fr other subjects earn Kes. 78 for each script they mark.
“Due to the current harsh economic situation, we expect the government to review our payment terms. Since 2010 the payment of work done per paper has remained at Kes 55 which we now want to be increased to Kes 70,” said one of the examiners to the media who preferred to be anonymous.
The examiners complained about their Chief Examiner overworking them saying that they had been waking up at 5:00 am and going to bed at 10:00 pm. they wanted to be anonymous over fears of being victimized.
They said that long workdays had led to them being too tired to render an accurate judgment and that they would end up failing. Additionally, they complained that their contact had been completely cut off by the seizure of their laptops and phones from the marking area.
The Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) David Njengere’s efforts of addressing the teachers’ grievances on the 10th of January did not bear fruit.
The teachers said that the KNEC CEO simply removed the Chief Examiner who they had complained about for using tyranny and a lack of leadership but their calls for a pay rise fell on deaf ears.
The examiners said they will continue downing their tools which might postpone the announcement of the KCSE results. They insisted that they will not return to marking until their grievances had been addressed.
“CRE is like an essay and takes a lot of time to mark. Our demands for the increment in payment per script must be increased from Kes 55 to at least Kes 70, failure to which we will not resume the marking exercise,” said one of the female examiners who told journalists over the phone.
KNEC has since released a circular on the same matter to reveal the steps they have taken to address the issue.