Sunday 23 September 2018

NEW RULES TO PLUG ZIMSEC EXAMS LEAKAGES


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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