The Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) has threatened to instruct teachers not to mark this year’s national examinations unless the union signs a binding agreement with the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) on payment.
Kuppet national chairman Omboko Milemba said examiners who marked last year’s examinations are yet to receive their full payment, despite what he described as meagre compensation for the work.
“Knec is underpaying examiners; sometimes it pays even Sh30 per script. The examiners are living in poor conditions and these examiners are not even paid their monies long after they have finished. Could you imagine that the examiners did marking in November-October last year? To date, they have not paid,” he said.
Knec procures marking services for national examinations and assessments through a structured process involving recruitment, training and contracting of qualified teachers and specialists, in line with established legal and logistical protocols.
The council signs a marking contract with each examiner, stipulating the terms and conditions of engagement for a specific examination or assessment series.
Strict security measures are enforced, including CCTV surveillance in marking rooms and secure transportation of scripts to centres, traditionally concentrated around Nairobi to enhance monitoring.
All examiner actions are governed by strict confidentiality rules, including the signing of an oath of secrecy before the marking exercise begins.
Last year, a section of KCSE examiners downed their tools over unpaid allowances during the marking period, which ran from November 24 to December 15.
The examiners boycotted work three weeks into the exercise, claiming that the government had yet to pay their Sh5,000 coordination allowance.
Speaking on NTV’s Fixing the Nation on Tuesday morning, Milemba said this year, the union will advise teachers not to start marking until a consensus is reached with Knec on payment, even as they await intervention from Parliament.
“But I also want to tell our teachers that for how long will Knec be disturbing us like this? We must build resilience of fighting for their rights because the last time we told them that we must deal with KNEC with finality, we slowed down,” he said.
“I’m encouraging them that coming this year, when Knec calls our teachers to go and mark and we tell them ‘don’t go and mark’, they must not go.”
Milemba said teachers will withhold their services to push Knec into signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the payment plan.
“Sometimes you have to carry your own twigs to be listened to,” he said.
This year, Knec will administer three major national assessments and examinations, targeting a record 3.7 million learners.
The key assessments include the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) for Grade 6, the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) for Grade 9, and the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination for Form 4s.
