General Education Minister David Mabumba has advised Kafue parents, whose children had missing Religious Education results on their GCE transcripts, to complain to ECZ.

Last week, the parents complained that their children’s results were marked ‘mal-practice case’ and that efforts to rectify the problem with school managements had proved futile.

“The problem was that the school discovered that almost everyone who wrote RE, no one has received the results! The [statement of results] were just written ‘mal-practice case’ now we don’t know, almost everyone who wrote RE. In Kafue, there are about three schools and at Nangogwe, Kafue Day and another one in Chiyawa; and we were there on Monday although we were told that we should give chance to the school so that they can know what to do and maybe try to follow up [the matter],” the parents said.

But when contacted, Mabumba said it could be possible that Kafue district was part of the over 500 GCE mal-practice cases that were recorded.

“What I am only aware is that there were 500 plus mal-practice cases that were recorded around GCE exams. So maybe that could be one of them [and] maybe that is why they (results) have shown like that. The only thing which parents should encourage their children is to go to the Examination Council of Zambia so that they are given the details of the levels of mal-practice. But you know when I read the statement is this number in terms of percentage and so forth. But maybe since I have spoken to you and if you have an opportunity to speak to them, they need to understand other than just being given a statement which is saying ‘mal-practice’, they need to go and say ‘what sort of mal-practice was this?” Mabumba asked.

He advised the affected parents to follow-up the matter with the Examination Council of Zambia.

“If I were them as parents I think nothing stops them from going to the centre to inquire because you see exams are written on an individual basis. And therefore if you have got a son or a daughter whose results will be showing mal-practice, what I am supposed to do as a parent is to go to the Examination Council of Zambia and establish the level of those mal-practices. And I am sure the Examination Council of Zambia will be generous enough to tell those particular parents the level of mal-practice. What type of mal-practice was it? Was the candidate found to have leakage when writing exams? Or was a candidate caught with a leaked paper? Unfortunately I don’t have the statement with me now but they were about 500 plus cases that were reported when I issued the statement on the GCE. Then of course if we have a report like that, it could be that Kafue was part of that,” said Mabumba.