Technology vexes O-level exam markers

THE Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) is reportedly having problems with the new e-marking system which is down and likely to delay the release of the 2013 O-level examination results, it has been learnt.

Although the examinations body could not confirm the possible delay, officials claimed they were merely facing "infrastructure and technical problems" that were delaying the marking of three "big" O-level subjects.

According to well placed sources, the system used in the marking of the examinations was giving Zimsec officials a hard time and now threatening the timeous release of the examination results.

However, an official from the examination body's public relations section, Ms Tryfine Dzvukutu, said they were working round the clock to resolve the challenges to ensure that results are released on time.

She said once the e-marking system was fully established, it was going to be much cheaper as there would be no need to buy expensive mark sheets or transport students' written scripts and marking would be faster.

Zimsec began the e-marking scheme in June last year, a move that saw them becoming the first country in Africa to use e-marking for public examinations.

The programme is designed to stop functioning if ever a marker tries to give more or less marks than those expected and also eases the burden of adding the marks manually as it automatically adds and sends the final marks to the database within seconds.

Previously, Zimsec used the belt marking strategy, where markers would group and take turns to mark a single script to eliminate errors that usually came with one marker.