The Cabinet considered and approved the Zimbabwe School Examination Amendment Bill on Tuesday, 8 April.
If the bill is eventually passed into law, individuals convicted of leaking public examination question papers could face up to nine years in prison. Schools found guilty of the same offence would be deregistered and shut down under the proposed legislation.
The new regulations also state that anyone caught impersonating a student and sitting for an exam on their behalf will face imprisonment.
Previously, those found guilty of similar offences could face up to a year in jail, but in many cases, the courts opted for community service instead.
Speaking during a post-Cabinet media briefing in Harare on Tuesday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Jenfan Muswere, said:
The decision to amend the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council Act [Chapter 25:18] is to address challenges obtaining in the education sector, in particular, examination leakages, registration anomalies and fraudulent practices at some examination centres countrywide.
The Zimbabwe School Examinations Amendment Bill, 2024, therefore has inter-alia, the following objectives: streamlining Board functions to provide for the deregistration of non-compliant examination centres; strengthening of the operational efficiency of the Board; and reviewing of penalties for examination malpractices. More critically, the Bill eliminates leakages across all examination centres.
Speaking at the same briefing, Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Torerai Moyo, said:
It should be noted that on leakages, we have had leakages especially in 2022 where more than five examination question papers leaked, especially, for Ordinary Level.
To address this mischief, we have come with this new Bill. According to section 141 of the Constitution, the general public will decide as they make submissions to the Bill, they will decide on the penalties, but what we are proffering as a solution is imprisonment of those culprits.
We are likely to come up with penalties, for leakage of one paper, one may be imprisoned for a period that exceeds nine years so that it becomes a deterrent measure to those who may want to engage in that criminal act.
Another measure is the deregistration of examination centres.
We are going to penalise those schools, registered or not. In the majority of cases unregistered centres as compared to registered centres (are often the culprits). So, we are going to deal decisively with this by deregistering these centres.
Another way is the issue of impersonation, where someone will masquerade as a bona fide student, writing the examination for another person. Those that will be caught will also face the same music and go to jail.
More: The Herald
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