GCE investigate why Candidates did not write Maths Exams

The Registrar of the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE, Board, Humphrey Ekema Monono, has opened investigations to ascertain why some students in Yaounde failed to write Maths paper 3 this year’s GCE Board-organised certificate examinations.

The Registrar disclosed that investigations are ongoing to find out why some candidates in Yaounde, out of the whole country, were not informed about the time they were supposed to write maths paper 3 at the ‘A’ levels.

In the remarks made at the end of the 2014 session of the exams on June 12, Monono said cases of this nature warrant very serious administrative and academic decisions. “There is a final award committee which will do the final announcement. Once the investigation is over and we know whether the fault came from the administration. Then if the administrators have to be sanctioned otherwise if it is the candidates acted irresponsible then the candidates will also be duly punished,” the Registrar reiterated.

The whole scenario started after some eight students of La Gaite International School Complex failed to respond to calling of their names while teachers checked the attendance to ascertain who were present for Further Maths paper 3.

The said students, who were registered as external candidates under Chuo Bilingual Comprehensive College Carriere in Yaounde, said they were supposed to sit for the paper in the afternoon, whereas it was scheduled to take place in the morning.

According to the Superintendent of the Centre,when one Florence Forchu got to her Centre at 7am and started checking candidates for the Maths paper 3, eight candidates all from La Gaite were not yet there. She immediately called the attention of the Chief of Centre who called the Vice Principal of La Gaite to signal that his candidates were not at the examination centre. Florence told the Chief of centre that the candidates know that they are supposed to write and added that they should be on their way to the exams center.

The superintendent added that the Vice Principal rushed to the centre and was advised that since his candidates have still not shown up; he should try and contact them. Given that he didn’t have their contacts with him, he went back to his school and went through the directory to get in touch with their parents. Unfortunately, the first candidate from La Gaite got to the Centre at 9:20am whereas the kick-off time was at 8am. “I had to get clearance from hierarchy because the rules of the exams are very clear. If a candidate is 30minutes late for a two and a half hour paper, that candidate is not supposed to come in. The instruction from hierarchy was that the candidates are late,” the superintendent explained.

Candidates going in for the GCE usually have individual timetables apart from the general timetable. But, in this case, the individual timetable of these candidates indicated that they were supposed to write in the afternoon. Forchu explained that these timetables had been reviewed in January before the exams started and the reviewed timetables sent back to schools and accommodation centres. Some other centres in Yaounde also suffered a similar fate.

The Superintendent of Government Bilingual Practising High School Yaounde, Julie Teleu, said that few external candidates did not also write their Maths paper 3 in her centre because their individual timetables were different from the General timetable. She said that though the exams went on well, few cases of cheating were discovered but going by the rules of the exams, they are not supposed to stop a candidate from writing. To this effect, they had to file a report.

After visiting examiners at the Buea marking centre early this week, the Registrar disclosed that, all things being equal and going by the Ministerial calendar, the results of the GCE should be out by the first two weeks of August.