Past papers

Go to E-learning → Past Papers.

The school shelf holds approved past papers and their marking schemes. Record the subject, class or grade, assessment type and year exactly. Use Uploaded by when you need to trace who placed a paper on the shelf; older unattributed rows appear as Not recorded rather than being hidden.

What’s new — 21 September 2026

• The verified 2021–2025 KCSE import adds 122 standard question papers and 63 reviewed marking or solution guides for Form 4 Kenya 8-4-4 learners.
• A reviewed PDF can be started as a protected timed sitting even before an exact interactive transcription exists.
• Similar-paper generation now aggregates all reviewed papers in the same paper family, including non-copying profiles from verified PDFs.

Add a school paper

1. Choose the assessment, subject, class and year.
2. Attach the question paper PDF and, when available, its marking scheme.
3. Record the source and confirm that the school has the right to use it.
4. Submit it for review. Approval and successful release to learners are separate states.

The upload window uses the same rose theme as the Past Papers shelf. Status colours still keep successes and errors distinct while a batch is uploading.

Do not upload a paper merely because a copy is available on another website. Availability is not permission to reproduce or distribute it. Keep the source and permission record with the paper.

KNEC catalogue coverage

The KNEC coverage register accounts for every expected KPSEA and KJSEA item and for every KCSE timetable item from 2021–2025, by assessment, year, paper and accessibility variant. Form 4 KCSE uses the canonical Kenya 8-4-4 curriculum. A missing item remains visible as a gap; a generic school mock never counts as an official KNEC paper.

An authorised platform content reviewer may import a KNEC source only when its provenance and permission are recorded. Another reviewer must approve it. Question papers, project tools and marking schemes have separate status, so a paper is not labelled complete when its scheme is missing.

Portal credentials are not a redistribution licence. If material is available only through a credentialed KNEC service, obtain it through the school’s authorised process and confirm the permitted ShuleOne uses before upload.

The timetable register is not itself a paper download. KNEC distributes KCSE past-paper publications through its controlled sales and handover channels, so each KCSE slot remains unavailable to learners until authorised bytes, a file hash, provenance and permitted uses have been recorded and independently reviewed.

Digital practice and reports

The learner may read an approved PDF, sit it in a protected timed viewer, sit an approved exact digital transcription, or ask for a new AI-generated paper with a similar subject and assessment shape. The timed viewer uses the reviewed duration stored with the paper and hides the questions when time expires; it does not claim automatic marking without an approved answer key.

Similar-paper generation checks the aggregate pattern of all reviewed papers in the same assessment, subject and paper-number family; it does not use only the opened paper. An exact digital version supplies structured question metadata. A verified PDF that is not yet transcribed supplies only its non-copying structural profile. Source wording and answers are never sent to the generator. Reports label exact source sittings and AI-similar practice separately. A marked sitting contributes to weak-area evidence only where questions carry verified syllabus sub-strand tags.

Opening or saving the PDF for offline reading is not a completed attempt and does not create a score. The protected viewer removes ShuleOne’s export and share controls, but no browser or phone can prevent screenshots of a document once it is visible.

Create an exact digital version

An exact digital version is a staff transcription of an approved source PDF. It is not produced by AI and is not enabled merely because a PDF exists.

1. In KNEC coverage, select the exact approved global import for the question-paper slot.
2. Confirm that the question-paper right explicitly permits authenticated display and digital conversion. Marking-scheme permission is reviewed independently.
3. Open Exact digital status → Open digital desk.
4. Compare the source PDF with the structured JSON side by side. Preserve the source question count, order, wording, duration and marks. Every question needs a unique id, supported type, valid syllabus sub-strand id and complete marking data. KCSE papers resolve those ids against the Form 4 Kenya 8-4-4 syllabus.
5. Resolve every validation issue, confirm the displayed question/mark totals and content hash, then import a new immutable version.
6. A different signed-in reviewer compares the version with the source, records review notes and chooses Approve & publish or Reject. The uploader cannot approve their own version.

Approval pins the structured content hash and the source-PDF hash. Replacing the source PDF makes the older digital version unusable. To correct an approved version, import and independently approve a new version; never edit an approved version in place. The version list shows status, question and mark totals, lock version, source hash and content hash.

Deployment preflight for operators

Do not deploy these workflows until the audited application branches are merged and the database changes have been applied to the intended databases. On the Companion database, apply in order:

1. 20260824_02_knec_catalogue_status.sql
2. 20260824_03_past_paper_practice_reports.sql
3. 20260824_04_digital_past_paper_sittings.sql
4. 20260921_01_knec_catalogue_kcse.sql
5. 20260921_02_past_paper_reference_profiles.sql

Apply 20260824_03_digital_past_paper_evidence.sql to NewFee using its per-tenant migration convention. Confirm the target host and database, run non-mutating preflight queries, confirm a recoverable backup and stop on unexpected duplicates or incompatible columns. The Companion uses ddl-auto=none; an application restart cannot create the mapped columns. After installation, verify the running process start time and inspect the running artifact rather than assuming a copied JAR was restarted.

What’s new - 31 August 2026

• The upload window now follows the Past Papers rose theme instead of opening as a blue panel.

24 August 2026

• KNEC coverage now distinguishes missing sources, missing permission, review and learner-ready status across the complete expected catalogue.
• The shelf can be filtered by uploader, including older papers whose uploader was not recorded.
• Linked learner practice now retains its exact source-paper record and has a read-only progress report with latest, best and average score, attempt history and verified weak areas.
• The exact digital desk compares the source PDF with structured questions, validates marking and CBC tags, records immutable hashes and requires a separate uploader and reviewer.

Papers & practice workspace

Open E-learning → Papers & practice. Use Past-paper library to find and manage source papers, and AI paper queue to request and review generated practice. The two tabs share one sidebar entry. Each tab still requires its existing staff permissions; AI drafts still need teacher review before learners can use them.

Practice paper requests

Open Papers & practice → AI paper queue, then New paper. Select a Reference paper and set the question count, duration and any additional instructions. Choose Generate paper for a queued request, then review the questions before approval. Generation uses the national blueprint and the aggregate pattern from every reviewed paper in the same subject and paper-number family. A verified PDF contributes a non-copying structural profile; an exact digital paper contributes its structured metadata. Protected question and answer wording is not sent to the model. When no reviewed corpus exists, the generated draft says so and falls back to the selected paper’s metadata and validated curriculum.