FIVE SCHOOLS HAVE RESULTS WITHHELD

MBABANE – The Examinations Council of Swaziland (EcoS) has withheld results for five primary schools due to suspected malpractice.

Pupils in these schools will have to wait a little longer before they can get their results because the council is conducting investigations.
Speaking during a press conference at the Ministry of Education and Training yesterday, Registrar of the Exams Council Dr Edmund Mazibuko said pending the outcome of the investigations, the results would remain withheld.

“We have five cases where we suspect malpractice. We haven’t finished our investigations on what happened during the exams which is why we have withheld the results for these five schools. We want to satisfy ourselves which is why we call them suspected cases of malpractice. We will not release these results until we satisfy ourselves,” he said.

Mazibuko said it was, however, impressive to note that the cases of suspected malpractice have dropped when compared to last year. He said there were 23 cases last year and as a council, they would be happy to have no cases at all.
Mazibuko declined to reveal the names of the suspected schools.

“We do not usually reveal the names of the schools where we suspect malpractice because schools are our partners. We don’t like to reveal their names. Secondly, these are just our suspicions and when you suspect, your suspicions may either be confirmed or not confirmed. We are still investigating. It’s not ethical to release the names of the schools,” he said.

He said the implicated schools had been made aware that their results would not be released because of suspicions of malpractice.
“The five schools know that we have withheld their results because we have already started engaging them. It’s just that we haven’t finalised certain things. We would like to emphasise to the head teachers that they should be honest and inform parents that the results have been withheld because in the past, we noted that some head teachers were not honest with the parents.

“Sometimes we receive anonymous calls from people querying about the results. It’s not the duty of the exams council to explain to parents why we have withheld the results; that’s the duty of the head teacher,” he said.
He asked the schools to cooperate with the council in order for the investigations to be finished early.

“We sometimes face challenges where you find that the school is in denial that there were malpractices and refuse to cooperate with us. Sometimes they refuse to bring the pupils to us when we ask them to do as part of our investigations or refuse to write reports when we ask them to. When that happens, the release of the results is further delayed because of the hindrance into the investigations,” he said.

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