Police in Busia County yesterday raided Nambale Urban Secondary School in a flash operation to crackdown those who were suspected to be executing the national exam cheating.
Emerging facts indicate that the tight cartel led by the school’s principal Joseph Onyango have been secretly coordinating with operatives in Nairobi to compromise most of the papers of the ongoing Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) by secretly leaking them to their exam sitting students.
It is said that Onyango whom upon realising that his illegal secret exam cheating operations had been leaked to the authorities, he fled and went into hiding fearing to be arrested and arraigned in a court of law to answer charges.
Authorities in Busia County confirmed that police in Busia were looking for Mr. Onyango over allegations of KCSE exam leakage.
However the police who were acting on a tip off in collaboration with the County Education Office, raided the school yesterday morning but did not manage to arrest anyone as those involved had already disappeared after being alerted about the raid.
Impeccable sources told Angaza News that the Principal was working with some University Students who are believed to be the originators of the said leaked papers and that the police had started pursuing the leads to bring the suspected executers to book – right from Nairobi to Busia County.
Confirming the incident the Busia County Director of Education Mr. Thaddeus Awuor said, “I am aware of the alleged exam cheating and I want to assure you that no one shall be spared if the ongoing investigations proves otherwise.”
Some independent sources within the County Education Office also revealed that several teachers including the Principal at Nambale Urban had been moved and the some officials from the Ministry left to man the exams.
In the recent past years some highly respected high schools in Busia have been caught flat footed involved in exam cheating. At the beginning it hit Butula National High School before spreading to Nambale High School which is less than two kilometers from Nambale Urban Secondary and whose 2016 KCSE
results were cancelled.
Just as recently as six days ago, a secondary school teacher suspected to be the mastermind behind the KCSE examination leakage in Nyanza had been arrested in Homa Bay County.
The 32-year-old teacher at Nyagwethe Secondary, Suba sub-county was arrested in Mbita town on Wednesday last week evening.
Right from 1st of this month ,at least 15 people, among them a University student had been arrested in Busia for aiding cheating in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said 8 students were also arrested when they were found with mobile phones in the examination room.
“A total of 15 cell phones have been confiscated from various examination centres and are in the hands of our law enforcement agencies as investigations continue to reuse the cell-phones and find out what is inside the phones,” he said during a tour of Upperhill School in Nairobi.
He called on parents and guardians to be careful of people selling fake examination papers and ordered that the teachers who were found culpable will be automatically sacked.
The biggest irony is the fact that though one of the youngest secondary schools in Busia since its students started sitting for the KSCE, Nambale Urban Secondary School has been steadily doing a sterling job, outperforming even veterans like St. Paul’s Amukura High School in Teso South sub-county.
Now parents have expressed fears that the exams could be cancelled but appealed to Ministry not to punish innocent students but instead deal with the Principal and his group involved in the planning and executing the scam.
Efforts to reach the Nambale police Commander for comments were futile.
