The Sunday Mail
Harmony Agere – Extra Reporter
Zimbabwe school examinations council (Zimsec), once ranked among the top examination bodies in the region, seems to be losing its lustre.
Educationists say the chilling surge in cases of examination fraud involving school heads, teachers and students at all levels of education threatens to derail the integrity of the country’s education system.
For almost a decade now, there have been numerous reports of school heads and teachers’ unprofessional conduct in the way they conducted examinations, albeit with little to no solid action from the authorities.
According to reports, teaching staff at various schools have been receiving money and material benefits to leak examination papers, write examinations on behalf of their students as well as providing candidates with answer sheets.
Experts say given the recurrent nature of their offences, one would expect that more punitive measures would be put in place to curb this criminal trend.
In 2012 alone, about 13 Ordinary Level examinations had to be reset at a cost reported to be $850 000, after a headmaster lost the exam papers while travelling on public transport from Bulawayo to his rural school in Matabeleland.
Last year during the June 2013 examinations, a Gokwe headmaster was incarcerated for writing 11 subjects on behalf of students at his school in exchange of cattle. Several other cases of examination fraud have been reported countrywide.
This year, similar reports were made in the Midlands where some teachers were nabbed for leaking examination papers.
Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Professor Paul Mavhima said the blame for the leaked examination papers should not lie with the ministry since these incidents are occurring at examination centres which are out of the ministry’s responsibility when it comes to distribution.
“The responsibility does not lie with the ministry because in this case the perpetrator is the headmaster who is well out of our responsibility in our distribution network,” he said.
“But our focus is to target that area (headmasters) so that we have more leaders who are professional and ethical.
“We need to do a better job in appointing headmasters because we have been falling short of appointing ethical headmasters.”
Prof Mavhima said the leakages are costing the Government a lot of money as in this particular case, about a million dollars is required for the re-sit of the leaked papers.
“Re-sits have cost us a lot of money and we are going to be ruthless to those found wanting, in fact we are actually pushing for leakages to be treated as criminal offence which carries a mandatory sentence.
“It may have been one incident but we condemn it in the strongest terms because it tarnishes the whole system.”
Experts have come out guns blazing, calling for concentrated punishment on offenders.
Education Coalition of Zimbabwe director, Mr Maxwell Rafomoyo said the problem was that authorities were ducking the real problem when it comes to exam fraud and leakages.
“The problem is that we scatter around the problem. These things have happened year in year out but we are not putting in place measures which are punitive enough to flush out the scourge,” he said.
“I think we need to do more in terms of punishing offenders because people do not really treat this as matter of urgency. Education will shape our future and we should make sure that it is of quality.” Education expert and University lecturer, Mr Wellington Moyo said the temptation will always be there for school authorities to engage in fraudulent activities given the ongoing harsh economic times.
“That teachers are being involved in this kind of criminality to get money might not be much of a surprise given the meagre salaries they earn,” he said.
“But the disciplinary action taken against those found wanting baffles my mind.
“I was surprised when last year a headmaster who was convicted after writing exams for students was only made to pay a US$400 fine. You would hope that these people will be used as examples so that others who are thinking of doing it will stop.”
Mr Moyo continued, “The rules announced by the ministry are good, but that’s for leaked papers. How about other cheating offences? Let not the ministry say what happens at the schools cannot be blamed on them because those schools are under the ministry.”
Research shows that most of the perpetrators who have committed cheating offences walked away with small fines of barely over US$50 or light sentences despite the fact that examination fraud is a threat to the country’s reputation and pride.
Investigations carried out by The Sunday Mail Extra revealed that the reported cases of examination fraud could just be a tip of an iceberg due to alleged poor monitoring of examinations by Zimsec officials.
Teachers and students who spoke to this publication last week said there was more corruption on the ground than what has been reported.
“There is more corruption on the ground when it is examination time than what is reported to the police,” said one Harare teacher who preferred anonymity. “If thorough investigations were to be made, it will be discovered that a lot of teachers and headmasters have done it or are doing it. It (cheating) should be stopped before it’s too late.
“In most cases, it would be a racket involving two or more people at the school and even Zimsec officials.”
The teacher said it was difficult for teachers to be writing examinations for students without the knowledge of headmasters.
“What you should know is that it is difficult for a teacher to write an examination for a student without the headmaster knowing it so there will obviously be connivance there.”
Further research shows that examination fraud is widely practiced in remote areas where there is less presence of Zimsec officials.
“This is just the tip of an ice-berg,” opined a teacher at Amaveni Secondary school in Kwekwe.
