The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has released the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination – KCSE Timetable (PDF). Here’s where candidates can download and access the final timetable (days, dates, sessions, and duration), guidelines as well as examination instructions online.
Instructions to candidates
- Avail yourself for searching outside the examination room and be seated at your desk/table 15 minutes before the time fixed for the examination in the various papers. The first session will start at 8.00 a.m. followed by the second session as indicated on the timetable.
- A candidate who arrives late will be required to give a satisfactory reason to the Supervisor. Only in exceptional circumstances will a paper be given to any candidate who is more than half an hour late. Absolute punctuality is essential for all papers.
- Check the question paper you have been given to confirm that it is the paper you registered for.
- If an examination paper for which you are not registered is handed to you, or if the questions indicate that a map or other material should also have been provided, inform the Supervisor at once.
- Attend carefully to any general instructions that may be given on the first page of a paper, e.g. instructions limiting the number of questions that should be answered.
- Check to ensure that each page of your question paper is printed.
- Write your name, index number, sign, and write the date of the examination on the answer booklet.
- Write on both sides of the paper, but do not use the margins. Begin the answer to each separate part of a question on a fresh line.
- Write the number of the question clearly in the left-hand margin at the beginning of each answer. Do not copy the question. Be careful to use the same system of numbering as appears in the question paper. Leave a blank line after the answer to each question.
- Write your responses in black or blue ink. You may use a fountain pen or ballpoint pen. Pencils should only be used for diagrams. Bring mathematical and drawing instruments for subjects for which they will be needed.
- Read each question carefully. A lot of time may be wasted in writing down information that is not asked for and no marks will be given for it.
- Do not spend too much time on one or two questions. Leave yourself adequate time to answer other questions.
- As soon as notice is given to stop, make sure your name, index number, signature, and the date of the examination are written on the answer booklet, and then hand it over to the supervisor/ invigilator.
Guidelines to Candidates
- You are not allowed to leave the examination room before the end of the period allocated to the paper except with special permission from the Supervisor. No candidate so permitted to leave may take a question paper or answer booklet out of the examination room.
- Do not leave a sheet of paper you have written on or your answers in such a position that another candidate can read them. You should not give or obtain unfair assistance, or attempt to do so, whether by copying or in any other way, and your work should not show proof of such unfair assistance.
- No communication whatsoever in whatever manner between candidates or with outsiders is allowed during the examination.
- You are not allowed to have in your possession or your proximity while in the examination room, any book, notes, papers, or any other materials whatsoever except the correct question papers and any materials expressly authorized by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC).
- You may only use mathematical tables printed by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), and these should not contain any additional notes except the printed information. If you are using a calculator as permitted by the Regulations, it should be the specified nonprogrammable calculator.
- If in doubt, check with the Supervisor. Calculators may be used in the following subjects Mathematics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Agriculture, Woodwork, Metalwork, Building Construction, Power Mechanics, Electricity, Drawing and design, Aviation Technology, Computer Studies, and Business Studies.
- You must return immediately to the Supervisor any question paper that has smudges, errors, or is badly printed.
- You must not take any used or unused paper out of the examination room. Any rough work must be done on the official answer booklet and, if not to be submitted with the answers, must be left on the desk to be collected by the Supervisor and destroyed.
- Any misconduct or causing of disturbance in or near the examination room will be treated as an examination irregularity.
- For practical papers to be taken in shifts, all candidates taking the examination must avail themselves of confinement. Any candidate who does not present him/herself for confinement will have committed an examination irregularity.
- Cell phones or any other electronic communication device are prohibited in examination centers. Any candidate found in possession of a cell phone or any other electronic communication device will have his or her results canceled.
Download KCSE Timetable (PDF) 2024
The timetable (PDF) (days, dates, sessions, and duration) of the 2024 Kenya Certificates of Primary Education (KCSE) examination papers has been released. Get a PDF here.
Thursday, October 19, 2023, is rehearsal day. The KNEC KCSE will officially start on Monday, October 23, 2022, and end on Friday, November 24, 2023.
