Security breach: Students asked to re-sit Cambridge exams

CIE convenor says it will withhold results of students who don’t reappear in exams.

KARACHI:

Students who took the O’level and IGCSE Islamiat and Pakistan Studies exams last month will have to reappear for the two subjects on June 13 and 14 in order to receive a grade, the Cambridge International Examinations announced on Monday.

Authorities cite security breach of examination papers as the reason behind the rescheduling of exams. This year, unofficial estimates say, 20,000 students across the country sat the exams of the two compulsory subjects.

“The integrity of the examination papers for these two subjects has been compromised,” British Council, Pakistan – convenor of the CIE exams – said in a statement. “To ensure the continuing integrity of our exams and results, students are required to re-take examinations for the two subjects.”

Empathising with the sentiments of scholars and their families, the institution says despite inconvenience, their foremost priority is to ensure fair results for all Cambridge students.

British Council’s marketing and communication manager, Shahid Abbas, said at this point they can only verify that the breach of security was not initiated in Pakistan and the local British Council was not party to the compromise.



Without commenting on the matter further, Abbas said investigations are under way and the findings will be declared by June 5.

CIE spokesperson in Pakistan, Uzma Yousuf, reiterated that the security lapse did not take place in Pakistan.

“It happened in another country. Details cannot be revealed but investigations are under way,” she told The Express Tribune.  “We had received substantial evidence on the security compromise, which was enough [for authorities] to take a decision.”

Yousuf added that the decision was unlikely to affect the future of students as they were not applying anywhere for higher studies at this stage.

After appearing in the rescheduled exams, results of the Islamiat and Pakistan Studies will also be released on August 13 along with rest of the results of June 2013 exam series, explained Abbas.

For students who cannot sit the new exams, the CIE via British Council will not announce the results. All such candidates, said Abbas, may sit for these subjects again in the November 2013 exam series.

As for now, the British Council officials had no response as to whether the students’ registration fee will be carried forward, in case they fail to appear in the two exams on June 13 and 14 and re-sit the exams in November 2013.

Pakistan students had made over 180,000 entries for O’ level and A’ level exams this year via more than 500 Cambridge qualifications offering schools or directly through the British Council as private candidates, Yousuf said.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2013.