adminIT’S apparent that the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council has not learned from previous experiences involving lost and leaked examination papers.
We state this on the back of a report in this issue of a Chipinge schoolteacher who after being entrusted with taking the Zimsec Grade 7 examination answer sheets to Mutare, decided instead to booze at a popular night club in Mutare.
With the answer sheets in his hands, the poor teacher got carried away, hired the services of a hooker whom he soon trusted like his own wife at home.
Answering to the call of nature, the teacher confidently left the priceless answer sheets in the custody of this hooker he had just met.
The papers belonging to five primary schools in the Rimbi Cluster under Chipinge district vanished with the hooker who probably thought she had struck a fortune.
Little did she know that she was in possession of important papers that have a huge bearing on the academic future of pupils who sat down to write the examinations after seven years of preparation.
The papers were found dumped the following morning in the suburb much to the surprise of residents who obviously questioned the Zimsec system.
As we write this piece, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is investigating what actually took place. Luckily, though tampered with, the examinations answer sheets were all found after the examination body verified.
This is another sad chapter in the way Zimsec is handling national examinations.
We would like to believe that Zimsec should have put in place a secure system to transport the answer sheets than using a mere teacher.
A teacher who was going to use public transport? Well, we might say the examination body is facing financial challenges like any other institution in this harsh economic climate, but was it not proper to assign two or more teachers to transport the papers to ensure that they reached their intended destination.
Why can’t the examination body hire vehicles that ferry answer sheets for examinations that are written once a year?
At times, some cost-cutting measures can become costly like what was about to hap- pen.
We don’t know what action the examination body has taken, but what we know is that if the papers were going to disappear it meant that those affected children were supposed to sit and write again.
Besides being costly, it was going to be unfair on the candidates who did not have any input in this debacle.
Last year, a Midlands State University student and four Form Four pupils from Harare were hauled before the courts facing charges of distributing O-Level Geography examination paper for US$40.
In a related incident, a headmistress from Zhombe and five teachers from the same area were detained at Gweru Police Station on allegations of selling copies of the Ordinary Level Science Paper 2 in various schools in the Midlands province.
These are only reported cases and more could have happened which went unnoticed. All this tarnishes Zimsec’s examination process.
Zimbabwe is marveled for its high literacy rate but unnecessary blunders being done by Zimsec have the effect of potraying that image in bad light.
We urge the examination body to put its house in order and ensure high integrity in the setting of the examinations, marking and their final distribution.
Those who mark the papers must be remunerated competitively so that they do their work well and satisfactorily.
Zimsec needs to put its house in order to regain public confidence.
Online Reporter