BUNGOMA, KENYA -- “My dream was to become a doctor,” says Joslin Nafula, 18, her face drawn and eyes gazing off into the distance.
For days now, she has been depressed, wallowing in what she calls "this feeling of nothingness."
Nafula recently received a text message with the results of her secondary school exam. She was one of the students to sit for the exam in 2009 and had been anxiously waiting for news of whether or not she would receive the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). The results, she says, “were life altering.”
More than 337,000 candidates took the KCSE exam at the end of 2009. The examination quite literally decides the fate of Kenyan students -- those who will attend university and those who will not.
When the results were released this spring via text message, Kenya learned that less than 25 percent of its students earned the C+ grade that is required to qualify for university. And Nafula was not the only girl whose hopes of higher education were dashed. Of the top 100 scores, only 27 belonged to girls. And not a single girl ranked in the top 10.
As a handful of Kenyan students celebrated, many more raised an eyebrow over a different number, --1,171, the number of student’s whose scores were cancelled because they were suspected of cheating.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that ill-fated message on my father’s phone,” says Nafula, The text message she received did not give her score. The message read: “Y." Nafula could not hold back her sobs as she explained that the "Y" meant that the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) had nullified her score. She was one of the 1,171 students suspected of cheating.
A former student of St. Cecilia Girls Secondary School Misikhu in the Bungoma district in Western Kenya, Nafula is the oldest of five children. Nafula says her life and dreams were shattered by that text message.
She insists she did not cheat.
The shame of the “Y” has impacted her family and her future. Her father, Donald Wekesa, has vowed not to spend another cent on Nafula’s education again. He declined to go on record for this article.
Cheating Penalty Deemed Irregular
Students who were caught in the act of cheating during the exam face a jail sentence of 12-months. To date, 22 students have been arrested and charged in court. For a student like Nafula who was not caught cheating, but assumed to have cheated, the council initially barred her and the others from taking the exam again for two years.
For Nafula, who is from the Western part of Kenya where patriarchy reigns, those two years could mean the difference between a career and an arranged marriage. She says she worried that after two more years at home, her father may have decided she had enough education and was ready to be married.
Luckily, Sam Ongeri, the minister of education recently deemed the two year ban too harsh and urged the council to come up with alternate punishment.
Method for Determining Fraud Unclear
According to the system of grading implemented in the KCSE, a “Y” indicates that irregularities were found in one or more subject tests taken by a student. Nafula is one of only four students from her school to have had their scores nullified. “There were alleged irregularities and cheating notions in my chemistry paper,” Nafula says, fervently denying having participated in any examination fraud.
Whether or not Nafula cheated, the decision will not be reviewed and the stigma of cheating will stick with her and her family.
While the number of students accused of cheating each year remains relatively low – about .4 percent last year, Ongeri, says the use of cell phones during exams was the primary reason a student’s score was nullified. Ongeri says with the rise of technology many students are using their phones to cheat during the exam.
But for Everlyne Kisanda, the Deputy Principal of St. Cecilia Girls Secondary Scool, that was not the case. Kisanda says the school administration was vigilant and no mobile phones were in the examination room. None of the four students from St. Cecilia who were accused of cheating, including Nafula, were caught during the test, which Kisanda says indicates there is not clear proof of exam fraud.
The method used to determine whether or not a student cheated remains unclear. Kisanda says she feels many of the students are victims of an inaccurate system.
“I did not cheat,” Nafula says. “I wish I could be given a second chance.”
It has not been determined when the government will allow her to take the test again. Even if the government gives her a second chance, her father may not.
