Times Of Swaziland: NO POLICE SUPERVISION OF EXAMS THIS YEAR NO POLICE SUPERVISION OF EXAMS THIS YEAR ================================================================================ BY SIBONGILE SUKATI AND SITHEMBILE HLATSHWAYO on 11/09/2019 00:59:00 MBABANE – It seems the invigilation of the 2019 academic year external examinations will not be under police supervision as was the case last year. This is because the Examinations Council of Eswatini (ECESWA) has already set the ball rolling by organising workshops for head teachers and other invigilators to educate them on what is expected of them during the examinations, which are scheduled to start next month. According to ECESWA Registrar Dr Edmund Mazibuko, the first training is expected to take place from September 23 to 26, 2019 in the various regions of the country. Mazibuko said with the examinations beginning next month, head teachers were encouraged to start looking for candidates who would assist them with invigilating. “Head teachers are reminded that they are the ones responsible for looking for their own invigilators,” said Mazibuko. He said each head teacher was expected to attend the workshops with one or two of the invigilators because they could not afford to workshop more numbers. The Registrar said in turn, they expected the head teachers to then impart knowledge by holding their own workshop when they returned to their respective schools. He reminded the head teachers that the ratio of invigilators to pupils was 1:30. Ratio “If the pupils are 31 then there should be two invigilators because the ratio was strictly 1:30,” he said. He said some schools with about 300 pupils needed to have at least 11 invigilators and he asked the head teachers to be honest and hire the right number of people. Mazibuko said this applied to all the grades from Grade VII, Form III and Form V. The registrar said the ratio helped to ensure that the pupils did not commit malpractice (copying) because they were not well supervised. He further said the head teachers and the trained invigilators also needed to ensure that they educated the pupils on the examination rules because some brought foreign materials to the exam room, which led them to being disqualified. Mazibuko said things like modern day watches were not acceptable in the exam room.