A TOTAL of 74 candidates who sat the Rwanda Advanced Certificate of Education (RACE) examinations last year, had their results cancelled due to malpractices.

Information from the Rwanda National Examination Council (RNEC) indicates that the majority of those involved are mature students.

John Rutayisire, RNEC’s Executive Secretary confirmed the development yesterday.

He said this was mainly because mature students, who registered as private candidates have little time for class.

According to Rutayisire, malpractices during examination periods are mostly caused by lack of preparation before sitting examination papers, forcing some candidates to cheat.

"I think these people don’t have enough time. They are overstretched with work and end up cheating in order to get certificates, which is very bad,” Rutayisire said.

However, Rutayisire said while releasing the results last week at RNEC headquarters that Government would continue fighting against the vice. 

"Every student must work hard. It is very bad to see old people cheating yet they should be the ones to set examples,” he lamented.

"The cause for cheating exams in general is mostly because some of students go to sit for exams without making enough preparations,” added Rutayisire.

According to statistics, malpractices in the previous years used to be conducted through impersonation where some people would sit for exams in the names of the registered candidates.

But this has since ceased since RNEC introduced the system of making certificates with photographs and many have resorted to using pre-written material.

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