Teacher, students in court over O' level exam fraud

A TEACHER at a private college in Mutare appeared in court yesterday on a fraud charge after he allegedly attempted to provide answers to an "O" Level student who was sitting for a Geography paper.

Richard Gurudza of Vision Academy and two students at the same college, Wellington Noruwana and Enock Zamani, were jointly charged of contravening Section 35 (e) of the Zimbabwe School Examination Council Act when they appeared before magistrate Aniah Ndiraya.

State counsel Brian Goto told the court that on November 13 and at Sakubva Commercial College, the suspects acted in common purpose by stealing a Zimsec Geography Paper Two (2248/14) "O" Level examination paper.

They had agreed to assist Zamani who was sitting for that paper ,thereby prejudicing Zimsec.
Gurudza allegedly prepared the answers and gave them to Noruwana to pass on to Zamani who writing the paper at Zamba Primary School.

At around 10am, Noruwana allegedly called Zamani on his mobile phone and asked him to leave the examination room to collect the prepared answer sheet outside.

Zamani pleaded with the invigilator to accompany him to the toilet.

The invigilator, Acquillinah Chinhara, accompanied him and he went into the urinary section alone where he was given the script by Noruwana in the toilet as per arrangement.

Zamani then left his own answer script in the toilet and returned to the examination room.

However, after he had produced the script that he was given outside, the invigilator noticed that he had an answer script which was different with those provided in the examination room.

He was then quizzed over the discrepancy and spilled the beans, leading to the recovery of the original script from the toilet.

The school authorities then reported the matter to police, leading to the three's arrest.
They were granted $20 bail and remanded to January 6 next year.