The Mozambican Education Ministry has canceled the ninth grade examinations in Physics, Chemistry, English and History because of academic fraud.
The Ministry spokesperson, Silvestre Dava, told a Maputo press conference on Wednesday that the confidentiality of the exams was destroyed when unknown persons opened envelopes containing the examination papers.
The fraud was discovered in Milange district, in the central province of Zambezia, but the Ministry opted to cancel the elections in the entire country, since it is not known how far copies of the exam papers had spread. Using digital means, the fraudsters could have sent the exams all over Mozambique.
Dava told reporters that the Education Ministry knows exactly where the fraud originated. But since the integrity of the exams has been compromised, the Ministry thought it had no choice but to draw up new exam papers. The ninth grade students will sit the new exams on 8 and 9 December.
“We know that the envelopes were opened”, said Dava. “Somebody opened the envelope, photographed the papers and shared them”.
Although the opening of the envelopes was only detected in Milange, digital copying of the papers meant that canceling the exams in the entire country was inevitable, he claimed, since the exams were circulating throughout the country.
Dava admitted that emergency funds will have to be mobilized for the December exams. The new exam papers will have to be drawn up, printed and distributed “in record time”. He declined to say how much this would cost.
Dava added that inspectors have been sent to Milange to find out exactly who was responsible for leaking the exams. Anyone caught will face disciplinary and criminal proceedings, he warned.
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