Exam cheating cases decline
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Tuesday December 1, 2015 17:59
The organisation’s executive secretary, Brian Mokopakgosi, told journalists yesterday that there had been an overall improvement in the conduct of examinations countrywide. He said that the system has matured as BEC successfully processed all its three examinations using the MALEPA system.
“We promised to cut on the amount of time we take to release results,” he said. “We are gaining on the efficiencies because of the system.”
Mokopakgosi said there was also an improvement in paying examinations markers. He said they are moving towards complete connection of all examinations centres. He also said the accreditation by Cambridge improved the quality of operations at BGCSE level.
He said that cases of maladministration and malpractices clouded examinations in the past. He spoke of reported incidents where wrong examination papers were opened by invigilators, which would spark concerns that exams were leaked.
He explained that exam papers were stored by the dates that particular paper would be written but sometimes invigilators just pick without looking at them.
He said that fortunately in cases where invigilators opened wrong papers, it was noticed before they could issue them to students. He also said that there has been an improvement in the number of cheating incidents from 22 two years ago to 12 this year.
“If a teacher is found to have copied the students we would report them to their employer,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mokopakgosi said BEC is expected to release standard seven results during the second week of December. The results for JC and BGCSE would be released in January and February respectively.
Marking of the standard seven exam papers was completed on November 8, 2015 while for JC and BGCSE, marking commenced yesterday. He however said that despite striving to achieve the set dates, there are always challenges along the way.