The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) has
acquired its own printing machine and will no longer be contracting other
organisations, a move acting director Dr Lazarus Nembaware says will help
combat examination paper leakages.
He revealed the development on Tuesday while presenting the
ministry’s budget expectations for next year to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee
on Primary and Secondary Education.
“With the help of the ministry, we have acquired a robust
printer and Zimsec is now going to be able to print the question papers itself.
“We had been contracting other organisations to do that and
it became a point of leakage. So this time we have more control when this
printer is in use and we are hoping that in June 2019, we will be printing all
our question papers ourselves,” he said.
Dr Nembaware said to avert examinations leakages the
examination board had come up with the concept of having item writers who would
develop items meant for the examinations.
“Item writers coming from different institutions are now
developing items, not question papers at a venue which we will go where they
will identify those items and we bank them as items,” he said.
“We are using a software called grade maker and this
software will then allow a subject manager to identify the different skills
which are needed in a particular question paper and a question paper is then
developed — that is the method we are using at setting.”
This stage is then followed by the printing. On the distribution stage Dr Nembaware said: “Again we
intervened to ensure that the question papers are secure. We are using a
cluster-centre approach to distributing the question papers.
“What we are doing is that we take our question papers to
three types of cluster centres. Where the schools are nucleated, it is much
easier to use one cluster centre where a number of schools — at least six to 10
— will use the cluster centre to collect the examination papers in the morning
of the exam. Where it is not possible, we give a school the status of keeping
its own question papers.”
He said the morning examinations timetable had been changed
from 8am to 9am to give enough time for logistical processes to take place. The
afternoon time table remained unchanged (2pm).
Dr Nembaware said cluster centres were manned by four
people — a police detail, a cluster centre manager, a Zimsec official and a
deputy to the cluster centre manager.
“There are three different keys which allow access to a
question paper where the question papers are being kept,” he added.
“No individual can access the storeroom as it will be
manned by three people who have to go there together with a police detail.”
Dr Nembaware said he was happy the fuel shortages had not
affected the sitting of examinations as prior arrangements to have fuel
reserves had been made.
“We have also gone round to monitor the situation, no
question paper has not been written because of the fuel crisis.
“Yes, there are challenges, but the challenges are being
sorted out,” he said.
“The scripts which candidates are writing are also returned
on a daily basis to our centres because we had experienced a challenge in that
particular area.”
Dr Nembaware said there was need to re-look at the ZIMCHE
Act which was a bit lenient to people who are flouting the regulations.
“We are hoping that it will come to Parliament as quickly
as possible with the amendments which we are suggesting. We are finishing the
last level of consultation and we are going to send it to the ministry after
this,” he said. Herald
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