On 20 November 2018, the Kenya National Examinations Council said its purchase of 20 new scanning machines had sharply reduced the time needed to process Kenya Certificate of Primary Education results.
The council said the new optical mark readers, which cost taxpayers Sh100 million, replaced 20 older scanners that had been in use for more than 17 years. KNEC also said it had improved the marking process by printing the candidate’s name, centre name and index number on examination materials to speed up handling.
According to the council, the machines can process stacks of scripts that may be marked on both sides. KNEC Chief Executive Officer George Magoha had assured Kenyans that the exams would be released in record time.
The 2018 KCPE examination was administered between October 30 and November 1, and marking was completed on Friday the previous week, with English composition and Insha among the final papers. KNEC said the faster processing had helped move results release from months to weeks over the past two years.
The council said 27,354 supervisors, 65,107 invigilators, 54,322 security officers, 27,161 centre managers, 918 examination management directors, 1,844 security officers manning containers and 6,791 drivers were deployed for the exercise.
A total of 1,052,364 candidates sat the examination in 2018. Of these, 527,294 were boys, representing 50.10 percent, while 525,070 were girls, or 49.9 percent. In 2017, 993,718 candidates sat the KCPE examination.
