KNEC: The difficulties we encountered when delivering KPSEA evaluations.
Senior Examinations Officer Samuel Ouko of the Kenya National Examination Council has disclosed a number of difficulties the organization had in 2022 and 2023 when conducting the Grade 6 KPSEA exams.
One of the difficulties Knec encountered, according to Ouko, was teachers’ poor ability to explain assessment results and reports to students and other stakeholders.
“We also had a high rate of absenteeism of learners during assessment,” Ouko stated.
He delivered a speech at the first-ever Annual Symposium on Competency-Based Assessment in Nairobi on Wednesday.
Ouko pointed out that instructors’ ability to create their own realistic assessment instruments was likewise restricted.
According to him, this makes it challenging for students to complete the real-world assessment problems created by the Knec.
“We need to build the capacity of teachers so that that they are able to develop their assessment tools,” he stated.
In addition, Ouko said that certain subjects—namely, music, home science, arts and crafts, and Hindu religious education—lacked qualified professors or technical staff.
Additionally, according to the Knec official, there were more students registered for Grade 3 than there were for Grade 6 KPSEA exams.
He wondered where some students vanished from Grade 3 registration.
“Schools be keen to register learners at Grade 3 as spelt out in assessment regulations,” he stated.
Ouko went on to say that while most people primarily associate the KPSEA formative assessment with the Grade 6 summative exam, the KPSEA formative assessment is also typically administered at the school level beginning in Grades 4 and 5.
“KPSEA is an umbrella of two assessments, the formative and the summative one at Grade 6,” he stated.
According to Ouko, the purpose of the Grade 6 evaluation is to track a student’s development and offer input to support the creation of policies.
“Through KPSEA, we can identify the gaps and provide the suggested remedies that teachers in classrooms can use to improve the instructions and performance of our learners,” he stated.
He pointed out that students are expected to answer the multiple-choice questions on the KPSEA summative exam on their own at the Grade 6 level.
Learners are expected to react to tasks either alone or collaboratively at the KPSEA formative level. According to Ouko, this level uses learning resources that are readily available locally to foster creativity.
Knec can use four performance levels to analyze the results after the exams.
The student is considered to be surpassing expectations at Level 4. It is stated that the student possesses excellent competencies above and beyond what is needed to meet the intended curricular result.
At Level 3, the student is fulfilling the criteria of the work and performing up to expectations.
At Level 2, the learner is beginning to meet expectations and demonstrates some of the task-specific competencies.
The learner’s performance is not up to par at Level 1. At this level, the learner shows poor performance on the competencies that are being evaluated.
Ouko mentioned that three reports were released following the KPSEA summative assessment.
“We have the individual learner report, then we issue the school specific report and the national report which we are doing today,” he stated.
KNEC: The difficulties we encountered when delivering KPSEA evaluations.
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