2019 Grade 3 assessment isn’t an exam- knec insists as exercise gets underway country wide

December 19, 2024

Photo- Grade three children using digital devices for a math lesson at Kabulokorr primary school in Loima Turkana County.

The Kenya National Examinations Council, knec, has insisted that grade 3 learners will be subjected to a term long assessment and not an exam as it is being reported in the media. The council was responding to assertions that the learners will be sitting an examination in the exercise which kicked off on Monday September 16, 2019.

“Education CS George Magoha explained on Friday that Grade 3 learners aren’t sitting any exams. The Exams Council is only monitoring their progress in a term-long exercise that does’nt have a timetable, is conducted by class teachers, has no supervision, and learners won’t be ranked,” insists the council.

On Friday, Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha said the exercise of monitoring Grade 3 learners progress isn’t an exam. According to the CS, the exercise is meant to collect data to inform policy decisions on the Competency Based Curriculum, CBC. He said that there won’t be timetable for the tests.

Also, the CS clarified that Birth certificates are not needed for the monitoring of learner progress and that all learners will progress to Grade 4 next year.

knec on its part was quick to quash a 2019 grade 3 tests time table that was being circulated in Social Media Platforms. “The Public should be notified that the timetable circulating in social media on Grade 3 monitoring is fake. Under the exercise; There’s no supervisor/invigilator, No timetable, the test is administered by class teachers, there are no individual scores and all Grade 3 kids will join Grade 4; next year,” insisted the Council.

Education CS George Magoha while conducting CBC class observation on Friday at Joytown Primary school, Thika restated that there is no Grade 3 national exam. The CS said Schools will administer a routine assessment of learners’ competencies the whole term to point out areas requiring interventions.

The Director General, Department of Basic Education in the Republic of South Africa Hubert Mweli follow a lesson in grade three class room at the Visa Oshwal Primary School. SA Government wants Kenya to help it to introduce Kiswahili in her schools. Photo/ Courtesy

The Tests

Meanwhile, the Council has instructed schools to download the test papers from the official knec portal. The tools to be used for monitoring of learners progress have already been uploaded on the KNEC Grade 3 Portal for head teachers to download and print copies for the learners.
“Schools can access the true copies of the Monitoring of Learner Progress (NOT EXAMS) from the Exams Council portal,” knec says.

“In the event that a school is not able to download the MLP tools the head teacher is advised to liaise with the Curriculum Support officer or the Sub county Director of Education for assistance,” advises the Council.

Learners will be assessed in the following three areas:
1). English language activities;
2). Mathematical activities and
3). Integrated learning Areas

Administration of the tools for Monitoring Learner Progress (MLP)

According to instructions from the exams council, Grade 3 MLP tools shall be administered by the headteacher and teachers in charge of the specific learning areas.

The council further says it will not provide supervisors and invigilators during the conduct and administration of the assessment tools to grade 3 learners. Likewise marking, scoring and uploading of the learners’ performance levels onto the KNEC grade 3 portal will also be done by the class teachers.