Story by Memory Chamisa
THE Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) has moved in to crack the whip on students involved in examination paper leaks after withholding 2022 Ordinary Level results for at least four schools.
The affected schools include Mukaro Girls High in Gutu, Silveira House in Masvingo and two other schools in Lower Gweru.
While other candidates viewed their results on the ZIMSEC online portal, others had the ‘W’ symbol on all or some of the subjects.
ZIMSEC spokesperson Ms Nicky Dlamini clarified that the results were withheld pending investigations after some anomalies were noticed on the answer sheets of the affected candidates.
‘‘Mukaro Mission, Silveira House and two other schools in Lower Gweru, yes, we withheld all the candidates’ results as we meticulously verified for cheating. Some red flags were picked in their answer sheets which promoted us not to release their results with others. We are still verifying on some and others that have been cleared have since been released to the schools.’’
The 2022 Ordinary Level examinations were marred by malpractices and the local examination body has moved in to invoke the new ZIMSEC Act.
She added, ‘‘This is the first time that people have seen Ws on result slips and going forward, ZIMSEC will nullify all the results of candidates that would have cheated together with the examination centres. They will be deregistered as we send a chilling message to would be offenders.
“Leaking an examination paper is a serious offence that even affects the whole exam chain as candidates will have to rewrite the leaked paper and also material budget for printing a new paper. All this is cumbersome and for people to be given community service or made to rewrite in the next session is very much lenient. So, the new Act will see to it that one serves a prison sentence, banned from writing for two or more years.’’
A total of 4 961 candidates had their results nullified for having pre-access to examination papers for the November 2022 Ordinary Level examinations.
Some school heads suspected to have played a role in the examination paper leakages have since appeared in court.
