Nine Students Barred From ZIMSEC Exam Over “Inappropriate” Haircuts To Be Given Marks, Says Minister

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has offered a reprieve for nine students at a school in Harare who were barred from sitting the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) Family and Religious Studies (FRS) Ordinary Level exam because their haircuts were considered inappropriate.

The students missed the exam despite having gone to have their haircuts, as they returned 55 minutes after the paper had started. Under Ministry policy, students are only allowed to enter the examination room within the first 15 minutes.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet briefing in Harare on Tuesday, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Torerai Moyo said the government will apply the aggregation policy to ensure the students still receive marks for the subject. Said Minister Moyo:

“The intervention we are going to take as the government is that we are going to apply the aggregation policy, where we give an aggregated pass to the student.

We are going to look at the top four students, how they performed in the first paper. And the last four.

“Then we are going to mark their scripts and give a grade to those students who are affected.

“So, they will not be disadvantaged because we felt that we could not give another paper to those students.

“But we will use the aggregation policy to give a grade to the nine candidates who were barred from writing the examination.”

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