The government is set to save billions of shillings blown in the printing, administering and marking process of CBC examinations.
This follows the acquisition of Optical Mark Recognition by the Kenya National Examination Council which electronically scored the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education in 2021.
Teachers have now been stripped of an opportunity to mark the final national examination in primary school, as has been the norm with the former Kenya Certificate for Primary Education.
According to the Kenya National Examination Council, the upcoming Competency Based Curriculum’s Kenya Primary School Education Assessment national examination will be purely in multiple-choice questions that can easily be marked using the new technology and teachers will not be contacted.
KNEC CBC coordinator Ann Ngatia, explained that the machine marks the candidates’ work by capturing their answer sheets using specialized scanning.
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.These machines work with a dedicated scanning device that shines a beam of light on the candidate’s paper.
Then, the contrasting reflection at predetermined positions on a page is used to detect marked areas as they reflect less light than the blank areas of the paper.
A great departure from the previous years where marking took hours, these new machines marked the candidate’s scripts in bunches of 100 and 200 sheets thus taking the shortest time.
This pioneer CBC classes of Grade 3, 4, 5 and 6 started sitting for their School Based Assessment examination last week.
In these assessments, KNEC only provides online copies that schools download and print for their learners to have a feel of what the national examination will be.
Teachers also help in marking, scoring, recording and feeding the final marks online with the national exam administration within their schools without any extra pay.
Grade six will sit for their final test starting November 28.
On November 25, it will be rehearsal day, with Mathematics and English examinations to be held on November 28.
On November 29, learners will sit for Integrated Science and Kiswahili examinations, with the last paper being Creative arts and Social Studies.