Four candidates give birth during the exam period

At least four candidates gave birth during the just concluded Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exams.

Three delivered their babies in Bomet and one in Machakos County.

The three delivered at Longisa County Referral Hospital. The hospital’s Medical Superintendent Ronald Kibet said one of the candidates gave birth on Sunday, a day before the rehearsals, while the second delivered on Tuesday at the start of the examinations.

The third gave birth after the last paper of day one.

HOSPITAL ROOM

Dr Kibet said health workers were compelled to convert one of the hospital rooms into an examination centre to enable the candidates to sit the examination that concluded Thursday.

And at Mbusyani village in Mwala, Machakos, a 16-year- old candidate at Maweli Primary gave birth at home on Wednesday evening before sitting her final exam.

The girl’s mother said she was grateful to God that her daughter had delivered safely. Separately, a candidate was forced to sit yesterday’s examination in a police station after eloping with her lover.

The girl, a pupil at Ndhiwa Primary School in Homa Bay, boycotted Kiswahili and science papers on Wednesday and eloped with a 30-year-old man.

Ndhiwa police commander Nixon Makokha said officers searched for the girl in the entire Homa Bay County but failed to locate her.

DETAINED

Later in the evening, they found her in a village near Sori town in the neighbouring Migori County.

Mr Makokha said they discovered that the man had taken the girl to one of his relative’s home. “We found the girl and [the man] in the village and arrested them,” said Mr Makokha.

The man was detained, as age assessment on the girl is done.

In Trans Mara, eight adults who had registered for KCPE skipped the tests. Trans Mara West Adult and Continuing Education officer Nelson Onsase said out of 17 registered candidates, only nine turned up for the exams.

He said that none of the candidates had reported that they would miss the exams. He wondered why they did not show up yet they had attended all classes.

PREGNANCY

Elsewhere, a man narrated how he overcame pressure to discontinue his daughter’s education after early pregnancy.

The father said his daughter, who sat the exams, was defiled at Guyu Fafi in Garissa. But despite reporting the matter to law enforcement officers, no action was taken.

“She still wanted to pursue her education despite what happened. so I told off those who wanted me to terminate her education,” he said.

“I want to finish my exams and proceed to secondary school then study medicine at university,” said the 14-year-old girl. Elsewhere, police in Marigat arrested a 15-year-old boy suspected to have impersonated a candidate at Kimalel Day and Boarding Primary in Baringo South.

Police said the school’s headteacher, Mr Kipkosiom Chepkerich , spotted the suspect enter the exam room through the window. “We have arrested the suspect and he will soon be arraigned in court and charged with impersonation,” Marigat OCPD Otulia Kaunya said.

Meanwhile, students at a school that had been closed due to Al-Shabaab attacks in Wajir County in 2012 have sat the exams at the institution for the first time in years.

Previously, pupils at Gherille Primary used to sit the exams in other schools due to insecurity. The school with about 200 pupils is located seven kilometres from the Somali border.

Reports by Geoffrey Rono, Stephen Muthini, Barrack Oduor, Bruhan Makong, Elgar Machuka, Abdimalik Hajir, Florah Koech, Benson Amadala and Joel Reyia.