The Government intends to appoint an Independent Commission of Inquiry to assess the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) following massive paper leakages and unusually high grades being scored by pupils at Advanced Level.
This was revealed by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Evelyn Ndlovu while presenting a Ministerial statement on the management of the leakages of some Ordinary Level examination question papers in the National Assembly on Wednesday last week.
During the course of the 2022 November examinations, English Language and Mathematics papers were leaked thereby compromising ZIMSEC’s credibility.
ZIMSEC was again under the spotlight early this year following the release of A Level results where some candidates recorded high grades for more than three subjects.
Some candidates wrote as many as ten subjects, against the standard three subjects, while high grades were recorded of up to 50 points.
In her presentation, Ndlovu said the results and recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry will guide the Ministry of Education going forward. She said:
I think we will restore credibility by having a Commission of Inquiry which will assess whether ZIMSEC is doing the right thing or they are leaking the examination papers. The results and recommendations will guide us accordingly.
On legislative changes, I promise that we are going to push for the ZIMSEC Amendment Bill to go through the relevant committees, it goes through Cabinet and then comes to Parliament.
We have a draft amendment Bill in place. That draft must go through the Cabinet process and then come to Parliament for approval.