By Chantelle Muzanenhamo
A headmaster at a Harare school, and the institution’s director have been arrested for barring nine students from a final year Zimsec examination allegedly as confirmed on Tuesday by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Torerai Moyo, during a post-Cabinet media briefing.
According to the Minister, the incident occurred on the morning the candidates were scheduled to sit for the Family and Religious Studies Ordinary Level paper.
Upon arrival at the examination venue, school authorities reportedly denied the learners entry, insisting their haircuts were against the school’s grooming standards.
The nine students were instructed to leave the school premises and first get haircuts before being allowed to return to write the examination.
However, by the time they returned the prescribed examination time had lapsed.
“When they came back, it was already 55 minutes into the examination. Our policy clearly states that candidates may only enter within the first 15 minutes after an examination begins,” Moyo said.
Moyo strongly condemned the school’s actions, describing them as a direct violation of government policy and the students’ constitutional rights.
“The action was inconsistent with Ministry guidelines,” he said.
“Access to examination material is a right, not a privilege.”
Following investigations, both the headmaster and the school director were arrested and charged.
“The headmaster and the director were arrested two weeks ago on Friday. They appeared in court on Monday last week at the Mbare Magistrates’ Court.
They were granted bail, and their matter was moved to December 9,” Moyo said.
To ensure the affected candidates are not academically prejudiced, Government has announced an extraordinary intervention to safeguard their results.
“We will give an aggregate pass to the affected students,” he said.
“We are going to analyse how the top four and bottom four students performed on the first paper, and then use that to assign a fair grade to the affected candidates.”
He also confirmed that ZIMSEC will mark the one paper that the affected students were able to sit.
Addressing the grooming dispute that triggered the controversy, Moyo said there is no rigid national policy on haircuts, beyond the expectation that learners should be neat and presentable.
“We do not have an explicit, clear-cut policy, but we want our students to be smartly dressed. Haircuts must resemble that they are students,” he said.