FAKE: This post on the temporary stoppage of the marking of the 2023 KCSE examination is not from Education CS Ezekiel Machogu
The Kenya National Examinations Council has dismissed the post as fake.
This screenshot on Facebook of a post supposedly from Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu announcing the temporary halt of the marking of the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination due to malpractice is FAKE.
The screenshot shows a post attributed to Machogu stating that the KCSE exam marking has been suspended due to seven cases of malpractice.
The post suggests the release of the KCSE results might be in January. The purported malpractices are blamed mainly on schools in the North Eastern region, according to the post. The undated publication mentions ongoing investigations with further updates promised.
An accompanying post reads: “Why is the North Eastern province not considered part of Kenya, despite there being instances of widespread malpractice in KCSE exams in other parts of the country?”
The screengrab has also been shared here.
The writing of the 2023 KCSE exam was completed on 24 November 2023 with the marking starting on 27 November.
The exam period was marred by several cases of malpractice. Citizen TV quoted the police as reporting the exam malpractices in four counties — Kisii, Nyamira, Wajir, and Bungoma.
But did the post originate from the CS as claimed? We checked.
A keyword search using ‘KCSE 2023 marking halted’ returned no media reports on the alleged marking suspension.
PesaCheck examined the KNEC website for the news item mentioned but found no such update. KNEC, the national agency that oversees national examinations, did not provide information on the reported matter.
A further review of the agency’s X (formerly Twitter) account and Facebook page showed that it had flagged the screengrab as fake, as seen here and here.
As such, the Education Cabinet Secretary did not issue the statement we are reviewing.
PesaCheck has looked into a screenshot of a post, purportedly by Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu, claiming that the marking of the 2023 KCSE exam has been stopped temporarily due to malpractices and found it to be FAKE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Harriet Ogayo and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
