Inside Govt’s Plan for KCSE Resit Exams

Students who miss the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) or wish to repeat them have an opportunity to retake the examinations after the Ministry of Education introduced mid-year examinations.

The Ministry introduced the mid-year examinations that will be administered every July to cushion students whose results are affected by missing one or more papers due to unavoidable circumstances.

“The mid-year exam will cater to candidates who wish to repeat the KCSE, as well as those who missed it due to illness or unforeseen circumstances. We also encourage adult candidates to register for the exam,” Ogamba stated.

CS Ogamba announced that the mid-year exams will cushion them from having to repeat the full year and offer them an opportunity to join university and college in due time.

“The students who sometimes face predicaments during exams or undertaking one subject and then it affects all the subjects because of that one incident, we allow them with the mid-year to remedy that so that they can go to whatever college or institution they are going to,” Ogamba explained.

This is a new intervention by the Ministry of Education that will be beginning in July and that will see Kenyans who want to retake the exams have an early opportunity. 

The retake will be open to everyone, including adults who want to sit for the exam. The opportunity will be open to both those who failed and want to retake and those who didn’t get results for failing to do the complete exams.

Details on whether one will need to pay for the exams and where they will be conducted will be revealed by the Ministry. In response to queries from Kenyans.co.ke, CS Migos stated that the Ministry is still ironing out details of the programme and will release them once complete.

Ogamba was speaking on Friday, January 10, at the Cardinal Otunga High School, where he had gone to inspect after a fire incident burnt down a dormitory. He had gone for an impromptu visit.

The CS has promised the school that the Ministry will distribute the necessary resources to reconstruct the dormitory.

The Ministry has been faced with cases where students register for exams but fail to take them. Other instances see students having missing and incomplete marks for being unable to finish the exams due to sickness or other emergencies.

As the country is looking to phase out the KCSE examinations with the introduction of the CBC, students have been advised to take advantage of the mid-year examinations.

Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) CEO Dr David Njengere on Thursday reminded Kenyans that KCSE will be faced out by 2027, and all those who want to repeat exams should cease this moment before the exams are completely phased out.

“Any person wishing to repeat the exam should seize the remaining chances before the system changes,” Njengere announced.