Death of KCSE marker at Loreto High linked to ‘exhaustion’ SATURDAY DECEMBER 23 2017

A teacher who was part of the team that marked KCSE Chemistry Paper 2 at Loreto High School, Limuru, reportedly collapsed and died in what her colleagues attributed to work pressure they were being subjected to.

“The teacher from Kiongwani Secondary School in Makueni County might have been ailing from some life threatening condition like hypertension but the pressure at the marking centre definitely worsened the situation,” said a teacher from Laikipia County.

300 PAPERS

Another teacher who participated in marking Chemistry Paper 3 at Kenya High School, Nairobi, said unlike in the previous years when the day’s work would end at 4pm— giving them time to relax and socialise— this time it would continue up to 10pm, making them retire to bed at around midnight.

This situation, he said, allowed many mistakes to pass and at times marks were wrongly awarded owing to fatigue.

“The pressure to finish the marking by December 15 was so high that each teacher ended up marking 300 papers per day and there was actually no time to relax,” he said.

“If a teacher happened to step out, he could get a big pile of exam scripts on his desk, which he was told he must finish by 10pm,” said the teacher.

He also said the marked papers were not audited as has been the tradition.

IT EPXERTS

A Kiswahili teacher told the Nation that they marked exams from 5am to 7pm on most days but on December 10, they were asked to mark from 5am to 10pm.

However, one examiner who spoke on condition of anonymity said there was no mischief in the release of the exams.

“There was an increase of the number of teachers to speed up the marking process,” said the teacher from Taita Taveta County.

“We used IT experts who were collecting data immediately examiners had marked the tests”.

Reported by Mwangi Ndirangu, Ken Kibet and Mohamed Ahmed.