Windhoek
About 82 Grade 10 learners, who are being investigated by the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture for cheating during their external exams in October and November last year, remain in limbo as their results have not yet been released.
With the 2016 academic year having already started this week, there is a possibility of the suspected learners having to repeat Grade 10, or enroll with the Namibia College of Open Learning (Namcol), if found guilty of cheating in the exams.
Sanet Steenkamp, the permanent secretary in the ministry of education, told New Era yesterday that the investigations are still ongoing and that the suspected learners’ results will be withheld until the probe has been completed.
“We’ve sent out different DNEA (National Examinations and Assessment) teams to all the places where we found there were malpractices. It’s different people who must be interviewed.
“That’s why we’re experiencing delays, but it is a priority for us. It has not been shifted aside. We can, therefore, say that we won’t release [the exam] results until the investigations are fully completed,” she said.
The director of national examinations and assessment, Cavin Nyambe, who late in December last year confirmed the investigation said at the time that the learners “might have had some form of assistance in mathematics, physical science, keyboard and word processing”.
The investigations started during last year’s marking process for Grade 10’s after the markers found a number of answer scripts suspicious, as it appeared that some students may have had some undue assistance during the exams. Nyambe said their answer scripts were scratched out and then rewritten.
The ministry declined to name the schools or regions where the learners are from, but said they are from three different schools in different regions.
“We can’t reveal the names of the schools and their regions, as we are still investigating. If we reveal the regions and schools’ names then it will jeopardise our investigations, because those schools would prepare before we go there if they found out now. But they say ‘you are innocent until proven guilty,’” Nyambe noted. He said the suspected candidates’ results would only be released once the investigations were done and it was proven that there was no wrongdoing.
One of the chief markers, who preferred anonymity, said when the exam scripts were being marked it was observed that some students, especially from Khomas Region, had the same answers. “These students gave the same answers word for word, whether they were wrong or right. They all wrote the same answers, as if there was a teacher telling them what exactly to write down. They even had the same sentences, so we became suspicious and alerted the directorate of national examinations,” he said.
Further, the source said they had observed that most of the suspects are Angolan nationals, “who often pay teachers for qualifications as they don’t communicate well in English.” He also revealed that the same students left certain questions unanswered in their scripts.
Examination leaks are not new to Namibia and occur with regularity both in Grade 10 and 12, and even at university level where lecturers have been accused of leaking papers to students. Last year alone three boxes containing Grade 10 exam papers vanished while being transported to Eenhana in the back of a pick-up with a canopy, to be stored at the education directorate’s offices. Papers stolen included English, geography and life science question papers.
Just last month a handful of University of Namibia (Unam) students were left fuming after they discovered at the last minute that they would not be able to sit for one of their Faculty of Economics and Management Science modules, following allegations that the exam papers had been leaked.
Over the years, Unam management has repeatedly declared key exam modules null and void, following allegations that the exam papers in question had been leaked.