Fears Malawi MSCE exams leaked: Cops asked not to intimidate candidates
Police officers who will be manning the examination centres during this years’ Malawi School Certificate of Educations (MSCE) have been asked to be professional when carrying out their duties and not to intimidate candidates.
Officer In-charge for Balaka Police Station Macmillan Nyirongo, Assistant Commissioner of Police, made the call when he was addressing the officers who will be involved in providing security at various examination centres.
“The duty of the Police officers manning the centres is to fight any examination malpractice and not to threaten the candidates,” he said.
Nyirongo however advised the police to see to it that no reference material is taken into the examination room and that all the rules are followed during the examinations.
One of the officers involved in the exercise Constable Hamida Mdala promised to be professional considering that cheating during examination dwindles education standards in the country.
She hinted that as professional police officers, they are there to enforce the laws as stipulated in the Malawi National Examination Board act.
Last year, Police in the district worked professionally as not even case involving Police officers were reported.
This year’s MSCE examinations are scheduled to start on Wednesday, 26th June, 2013.
Meanwhile, it is has been reported in other circles that this year’s national examinations have been leaked and that they are being sold by vendors in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
During MIJ FM’s phone-in ‘Democracy Forum’ programme on Monday evening, callers said they’d seen some of the examination questions.
Individual claims the following are some of the questions:
- MATHEMATICS PAPER 1
- QUESTION:
- 11 (a) Factorise the expression 8g + (f+2g) + 4f (3 marks)
- (b) Find the Value of the constant (c) in the expression y = mx + c, if (x, y) = (4, -5) and the gradient is -3/2 (4 marks)
Malawi National Examination Board (Maneb) executive director Roy Hauya said “We he a rd tha t i n Lilongwe, mathematics Paper 1 was in the streets. We checked on that but could not find the truth. We ha v e c onf i d enc e that examinations are protected.”.
N a t i o n a l P o l i c e spokesperson RhodaManjolo also denied that there were examination papers on the streets.
But spokesperson for Maneb told MIJ FM that they will probe the claims.
For the past decade, MSCE examinations papers have been leaking almost yearly. For example, since 2000 the other worst leakage was in 2007. Maneb had no choice other than to re-administer some examination papers.
Over the years the extent of the malpractice has been reflected by the disqualification figures that Maneb releases every year. For instance, in 2012 Maneb disqualified as many as 2 335 MSCE students were disqualified for various malpractices.
A lecturer in educational psychology guidance and counselling at Chancellor College, Symon Ernest Chiziwa,aulted the Maneb system of using teachers to form examinations for their own students.
Education specialist Dr. Steve Sharra, is on record saying the contributing factors to malpractices in examinations are the poor quality of education and an educational system that emphasises examinations over teaching and learning.
He said:“Examination leakages and cheating are more common in educational systems whose conditions are not optimum and conducive for effective teaching and learning. Schools that have conditions that inspire and motivate students to learn and apply their knowledge towards a better understanding of their community do not experience problems of leakages and cheating,”
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