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Knec website jammed ahead of registration deadline


Thousands of candidates may miss Tuesday’s deadline to register for this year’s national examinations due to jamming of the examiner’s website.

Candidates sitting Kenya Certificate of Secondary of Secondary Education (KCSE) and Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) are supposed to upload their details on the Kenya National Examination Council website on or before March 31.

With only less than a week to go, head teachers are frustrated as their efforts to upload their candidates’ details on the council’s website are unsuccessful.

UPLOAD PHOTOS

In the online registration, apart from keying in the students details, they are also required to upload their photos.

The school heads are logging into www.knec.ac.ke and upload their candidates’ details.

Mr Duncan Juma, the head teacher of Uhuru Secondary School says out of his 58 candidates, he has only managed to upload two photos.

“One photo successfully uploaded in the morning, the other one at went through at night, the rest of the students’ photos have hang, the council’s website is painfully slow,” he said in an interview.

Mr Juma said to avoid missing on the Tuesday’s deadline, he would make a report to the county director of education to look into the matter.

Another head teacher, Daniel Onyango, vented his frustration.  “We as school heads and secretaries are not able to even register a single candidate. How can you spend four hours just opening the exam portal on the council’s website?” he asked

Mr Juma and Onyango both complained that the national examiner is not picking their calls.

NOT PICKING CALLS

“KNEC contacts are not even being responded to , either the lines are engaged or they calls go unanswered,” said Mr Juma

The registration has been open since 1 November 2014, but last minute rush by the school heads has clogged the council’s website.

Contacted Knec said the system has been jammed by the high traffic but asked the head teachers to keep trying to access it.

“The website of down because of the congestion, we are aware and something is being done about it,” said Anastasia Nzomo who works at the council’s KCSE offices.

She did not say whether the council would extend the deadline but said the problem was being experienced nationally.

Last year, 486,630 sat KCSE and 880,486 sat KCPE examination in 2014.

This year, the number is expected to rise to close to 1.5 million candidates sitting the examination.