Schools Not Responsible For Exam Leakages - ARTUZ
The Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) has rubbished claims by Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Edgar Moyo, that school authorities working in cahoots with police were responsible for the leakage of public examination papers.
In 2022, some candidates had access to Zimbabwe School Examination Council (ZIMSEC) English Language and Mathematics examination papers several days before they were written.
Speaking during the question and answer session in the Senate on 29 March, Moyo said investigations by the Ministry of Education established that the exam leaks happen at schools. He said:
We also have the police officers who are there and when these papers are being removed from the strong room to the classroom for invigilation, it is not one person who takes those papers.
The whole system is water-tight in terms of security. We have integrity issues with some of our personnel at the school level and where the papers leaked, there was a kind of working together in cahoots by officials at the school.
When people agree and connive to do a crime, usually they will succeed because there is no one who is going to let the cat out of the bag.
Responding to Moyo’s remarks, ARTUZ said marking schemes and soft copies of the examination papers were leaked on social media platforms, yet schools were never in possession of the documents. ARTUZ said in a statement:
Moyo lied to Senate that exams leak at the School level. We saw marking schemes in circulation. Do schools receive marking schemes?
We saw soft copies of exam papers. Do schools receive soft copies? Our policy brief on exam leakages is accurate.
Last year, the National Association of Secondary Heads (NASH) pointed at ZIMSEC as the main source of the problem, rather than schools.
According to a leaked police memorandum, dated 19 October 2022, police said they suspected the soft copies of the papers are leaked by someone at the ZIMSEC head office in Harare.
Last year, 5 156 Advanced and Ordinary level candidates’ results were nullified for having pre-access to examination papers.
The A-Level results were released on 13 January with ZIMSEC withholding results for 195 candidates while the ‘O’ Level ones, where results for 4 961 candidates were nullified.
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