Zimsec probe after exam paper errors
THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is investigating alleged irregularities in the Zimbabwe School Examination Council (Zimsec) Grade Seven General Paper 1 examination amid concerns from parents that the test was littered with errors and ambiguity.
Some parents took to social media to express their concern over the examination which candidates set for on Monday.
They alleged that it had some spelling mistakes and ambiguity when it came to choices for answers.
Acting Bulawayo Provincial Education Director (PED) Mrs Olicah Kaira said they were looking into the concerns to verify if they were justified so that the Ministry and Zimsec can be advised.
“I can confirm that pupils wrote the examination on Monday. It was the first paper that was written. I’ve seen and read the message that is circulating on WhatsApp. I’m yet to verify. I’ve got the question paper, I will go through the paper and establish if there are any concerns then I will advise the Permanent Secretary (Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango) and Zimsec,” said Mrs Kaira.
Zimsec’s public relations officer Ms Nicky Dlamini defended the examination paper saying people should not cause panic when candidates are still writing examinations.
“The questions do have answers. It’s a multiple choice question paper. At the level of a Grade Seven if you look at the way they are taught there is an answer to the question that they were asked,” said Ms Dlamini.
“The first thing I will inform the nation is that remember that Grade Seven examinations started on Monday so we are actually in a live examination. So basically what the public is doing, they are causing panic for the students who are writing the examination. If there is a genuine concern, there are proper professional ways of addressing these concerns.”
She said the person who released the paper did not follow examination procedures and information on the paper was not supposed to have been released to the public within 48 hours of the examination being written.
“But if we look at it we can tell that this General Paper was brought out to the public which means it was a teacher or school head that did that. And this is very unprofessional and does not help the student at the moment. For the sake of the student can we use proper communication channels not WhatsApp to be able to deal with issues if there is a genuine concern that needs to be raised,” Ms Dlamini said.
The Chronicle did not immediately get hold of the examination paper in question.—@nqotshili.