Chronicle Editor
INDIVIDUALS convicted of leaking public examination question papers risk spending nine years in prison and students found guilty of the same offence will have their results nullified. The penalties are part of measures introduced by the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) to address the problem of exam paper leakage which is compromising the integrity of our exam system.
In the past those found guilty of leaking exam papers faced up to one year in prison and in most cases courts sentenced offenders to do community service.
Zimsec board chairperson, Professor Eddie Mwenje said the new penalties will be gazetted soon.
Prof Mwenje said individuals were taking advantage of lenient sentences to make money by selling the leaked exam papers.
It is hoped that the new penalties will be deterrent enough to avoid leakages which were compromising the integrity of our exam system.
More than 5 000 Advanced and Ordinary Level candidates had their results nullified for having pre-access to examination papers last year.
Zimsec said it nullified results of 195 A-level candidates and 4 961 O-level candidates.
The examinations body deregistered schools and examinations centres found guilty of leaking the exam papers.
Prof Mwenje said the examinations body was committed to upholding the integrity of the examinations system and as such will not tolerate any deviant behaviour.
Zimbabwe’s education system is an envy of many countries hence students who complete A-level can be enrolled at any university in the world.
Zimbabwean students graduating from its universities and other tertiary institutions are also recognised internationally because the country has been able to maintain very high education standards.
There is therefore an urgent need to ensure that this challenge of massive leakage of exam papers witnessed last year is nipped in the bud.
We want to believe that this time around the measures put in place by Zimsec are watertight to prevent leakages which are threatening to bring our exams system into disrepute.
School heads or teachers found guilty of leaking the exam papers should not only spend nine years in prison but should also be fired because we do not want such teachers in our system.
The education of the candidates whose results are nullified is disrupted as they can only write exams after four examination sessions.
Students and members of staff at examination centres should not hesitate to immediately report individuals tampering with exam papers to avoid what happened last year when more than 5 000 students were affected by exam paper leakages.
Online Reporter