Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Wilson Sossion now wants both the primary and secondary school national examinations to be postponed to next year following disruptions to the education sector occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.
Sossion, addressing the press at the Kenya Human Rights Commission offices in Lavington on Wednesday, urged the government to focus on flattening the Covid-19 infection curve first before shifting attention to the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.
The KNUT boss stated that the lives of teachers and learners should be prioritized in the decision-making process, adding that “resumption of schools must be a negotiable effort, not a dictatorship.”
“We would rather have all our children staying at home, safe and alive and repeating a year rather than sending them to school to die. The world will not come to an end if we suspend certain matters,” said Sossion.
“The national exams, KCPE and KCSE, are not a ticket to heaven. They can be postponed to suitable time when the syllabus shall have been covered and when the curve shall have been flattened.”
Sossion also argued that a majority of the country’s teachers are above 50 years of age hence have a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 if exposed, in the slightest manner, to the disease.
