41 pupils busted over exam leakages

THIRTY-NINE grade 12 pupils were on Monday night rounded up in Lusaka after they converged to study a leaked examination paper.
In Mansa, two Grade 12 pupils have been arrested while police are searching for a third one for allegedly breaking into a school office and stealing examination papers.
In the Lusaka incident, pupils from various schools converged in Mtendere Township after a teacher organised a leaked examination paper, which turned out to be fake, and is also suspected of having organised for a business executive to discuss the answers with the pupils.

Ministry of Education spokesperson, Hilary Chipango said the 39 were rounded up by police and Examinations Council of Zambia officials around 22:00 hours.
Mr Chipango said two men who were found with them, a teacher and a business executive, were also nabbed in the operation.
“The pupils were released after it was found that the paper was actually fake but the two men are in detention to help with investigations,” he said.
In Mansa, three grade 12 pupils broke into an office where 2014 examination papers were being kept at Lwele Secondary School.
Two of the three pupils allegedly broke into the deputy head teacher’s office at the boarding school, using the deputy school head’s keys, which one of them stole from the teacher’s home and broke some other locks.

The third pupil was found with 12 of the 14 stolen papers and was arrested after which he revealed the other two that had actually broken into the office. One was arrested but the third pupil is still on the run.
Luapula Province Police Commissioner Malcolm Mulenga said yesterday that the acting head teacher, Innocent Chilando reported to Milambo Police Post on Sunday around 12:30 hours that the office of the deputy head teacher, Cornelius Mweni, which housed the strong room where Grade 12 examination papers were kept, had been broken into.
Mr Mulenga said Police officers went to the school and found that the assailants had used the keys to open some locks to the main door and the trunk, where the examination papers were kept, while other locks were just forced open.
“Police verified that 14 examination papers which are English papers One and Two, Mathematics papers One and Two, Biology papers One and Two and Science papers One, Two and Three, were missing,” Mr Mulenga said.
Investigations revealed that a grade 12 pupil who regularly visited the acting deputy head teacher’s home to do some cleaning, stole the keys on Sunday and later broke into the office with another pupil.

The boy from Musumali Village in Chief Kalasa’s area in Mansa who was found with the 12 papers was questioned and the papers were retrieved from him around 21:00 hours on Sunday.
On Monday around 14:30 hours, when the other pupil was also apprehended, Police were led to a nearby bush, where they hid two other papers.
The two suspects are detained in custody over two counts of breaking into a building and committing a felony, as well as illegal possession of examination papers.

 

Times of Zambia