SCHOOLS will no longer be allowed to collect examination
papers days before the examination date but will collect and return each paper
to the cluster centre on the day of sitting as part of measures to tighten
security and avoid leakages.
Last year, Zimbabwe examinations were rocked by leakages
which resulted in candidates who sat for O-level English being assessed on one
paper after Paper 2 marks were nullified. The Government responded by firing
most senior officials who were heading the Zimbabwe Schools Examinations
Council.
In an interview in Bulawayo yesterday, Primary and
Secondary Education Minister Professor Paul Mavima said the Government had to
come up with a new model to maintain integrity of the local examinations.
“We have had cases where if the paper is brought to the
school prior to the date of writing, there were some breaches and now in order
to increase the security of our examinations we have said those papers must be
picked on the day on which the examination will be written except in very
extreme cases where the distance between the cluster centre and the school is
prohibitive in making sure that the exam starts in time, but there are some
other security measures that can be put in such cases,” he said.
Pupils will start writing end of year public examinations
next month. Prof Mavima added that the written scripts will also be returned to
the cluster centre on the same day. In the case of two examinations being
written on the same day, Prof Mavima said schools heads would pick up the
second session paper when returning the
scripts of the paper written in the morning. He also said those found breaching examination regulations will
now face jail time.
“We are in the process of changing the act to make
examinations breach a very serious offence that attracts mandatory jail time.
We have done a complete audit of the
whole examination value chain and we currently have a consultant working on it
and more measures will be put in place in order to ensure we don’t have any
more breaches,” he said. Sunday News
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