Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has written a strong letter to the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) demanding that the 2025 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination results be regraded.
He says the council treated Kenya Sign Language (KSL) unfairly when calculating final grades for some students.
In the letter, which KNEC received on January 13, 2026, Omtatah raised serious concerns about how KSL marks were included in the final KCSE results.
He argued that KNEC changed the way KSL was graded after the exams were already done, without telling students, schools, or parents first.
Under the current 8-4-4 curriculum, Kenya Sign Language is classified as a technical subject. For students with hearing impairments, KSL was treated as a compulsory language, similar to English and Kiswahili.
However, according to the senator, KSL marks were counted differently for hearing students who had registered for the subject as a technical choice. He said this approach was unfair and inconsistent.
Omtatah said that this change in grading happened without any official notice or guidance. He noted that students selected KSL as part of their subjects in Form Two and prepared for the exams with the understanding that their KSL results would count toward their final grades.
Because the policy appeared to change after the exams, he says many candidates were disadvantaged.
The senator said schools also invested in KSL teachers and teaching time, based on the earlier grading system.
He described the post-examination shift as violating basic principles of fairness and inclusive education, because it ignored students’ expectations and the resources that schools and learners had put into the subject.
In his letter, Omtatah has asked KNEC for several actions: provide information on how many students were affected by the grading difference, recall and recompute the 2025 KCSE results to properly include KSL marks, and issue clear guidance for how the subject will be graded in future exams.
He also urged KNEC to temporarily stop registration for the 2026 KCSE until the matter is settled. Omtatah warned that if KNEC does not respond within seven days, he will consider taking legal action in the High Court to protect the rights of the students affected.
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