Maneb says while this year’s Malawi School Certificate of Education examinations leakage has been worse than last year, it wants to focus its energies in pursuing and dealing with the cartel which is behind the leakages.
The Board in a statement says since examinations centres where the leakage have already been identified and several arrests made, it will be unreasonable to punish several thousand innocent students in many centres that have not been affected by the leakage by re-administering the examinations.
The statement says all centres affected have been identified and information has been collected for all cases that are with the police.
“Maneb takes full cognisance of the fact that the number of arrests is not the full indication of the scope and extent of the leakage, but they provide significant data as to which catchment areas had the most exposure to papers.
“In this regard Maneb will proceed to process MSCE 2013 for all candidates. We do not consider the option of re-writing on a number of grounds,” the statement says.
It says the Board has all necessary procedures to identify candidates who cheated and tools to detect candidates who had prior exposure to an examination paper, and will apply the same this year as was the case in 2012.
“We believe that re-writing the examination even in selected subjects or papers will be great torture and unfair burden to the majority of candidates who took the examination without any form of dishonesty,” it says.
Explaining why the leakage, Maneb blamed various stakeholders among them, government, weak laws, the police and District Education Officers.
According to Maneb statement, there were indications of the existence of a cartel that makes money from examinations which comprise public officers (police, teachers, civil servants), private education providers (teachers, principals, directors of private schools), parents and guardians, and vendors who survive on fast deals or work on behalf of major suppliers of these examinations.
According to the statement, the evidence available shows that Lilongwe City is again the epicentre of the leakage as was the case in 2012 and schools most affected are Chipasula, Chinsapo, Bwaila, Likuni Boys, Likuni Gilrs and Chisomo Private Secondary Schools.
Maneb believes that through thorough handling of the 38 candidates and 4 teachers who have been arrested over the examinations leakage, the barons of the cartel can easily be tracked and brought to book, instead of simply blaming the board. – By Theresa Chapulapula
