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Following a high-level meeting last Friday, top officers from the police service, the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) will be dispatched to six parts of the country to investigate reports of plans to cheat in the forthcoming national examinations. The chairman of KNEC warned principals against collecting money from parents to buy fake examination materials for their candidates.

The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education last week slammed the parents for paying Form One entrance examination fees saying they did that at their own peril as the Government has set an enrolment date for all the schools in the country. He said the entrance exams were banned long back by his ministry and have remained illegal and should not be left to continue. Enrolment of Form One students for next year started yesterday with parents expected to use their children's Grade Seven results.

The ongoing Government audit of schools across the country has unearthed massive abuse of levies collected from parents and guardians purportedly to fund development of learning infrastructure. From the 1 800 (18 percent) schools audited so far, there are indications of massive doctoring of accounting records by the schools.

Most secondary school authorities handed over the first term report cards to their students with various remarks. Those who attended classes regularly and worked hard during the term had good averages while others who played games and occupied drinking spots during school hours brought home fake report cards to impress their parents. The "ghost" students were last Friday seen in cyber cafés scanning and modifying their reports cards.

As schools re-opened countrywide last week, parents with children in public primary schools within Kisumu municipality now want the government to rescue them from the hands of rogue head teachers who have turned the schools into private academies to aid them mint cash.

The system is open to abuse because there is no counterchecking and quality assurance by the Education ministry of exam registration, marking and results. As a result, dishonest heads collected exam fees from students but failed to register them, said the Kenya National Association of Parents.