The Ministry of Education is considering discontinuing the use of Short Message Service (SMS) for candidates to access the results of national examinations.

Appearing before the National Assembly Education Committee on Thursday, December 7, Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu said the move follows errors witnessed in the recently released Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam results that sparked protests from various quarters.

Machogu told the committee that the SMS service provider contracted by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) was to blame for the mess.

In the results announced on November 23, some candidates had a misalignment of the marks and grades as marks for the Kenya Sign Language subject were inaccurately assigned to candidates instead of the Kiswahili Language in which they were examined.

While acknowledging the errors, Machogu affirmed that the system hitch only affected results received via SMS, adding that the results on the KNEC portal were accurate.

“As a CS, I have learnt lessons because you can see as a ministry, everything was right. Somebody we can call an outsider was given the contract but did not conform and do to the required standard

"Moving forward, when we release the KCSE examinations, we will not be able to make use of the same service provider,” he stated.

The CS further disclosed that the ministry was mulling the deployment of a website, where candidates would be able to access their results at no cost.