RUBAVU - A primary school head teacher in Rubavu District was, on Wednesday, arrested over allegations of examination malpractice.

Leonald Munyantabwa who was heading the Mahoko examination centre in the just concluded Primary School Leaving examinations, was allegedly caught cheating on behalf of his son who was sitting for the examinations from the centre.

Speaking to The New Times, the Deputy Director of Rwanda Education Board (REB), Emmanuel Muvunyi, said that Munyantabwa was arrested with two copies of Mathematics and Social Studies answer booklets.

 "One copy belonged to his son while the other belonged to another girl both primary six candidates at Mutura Primary School, where Munyantabwa is the headmaster,” said Muvunyi, who is in charge of Examinations and Accreditations at REB.

According to Muvunyi, after the arrest, he immediately admitted that on Tuesday, he went home with spare examination questionnaires for the two subjects and assisted his son to write the exam answers.

The next morning, he returned the answer booklets to the examinations centre where he tried to replace them with those submitted by his son.

He was apprehended with the papers in his bag.

Suspicion arose when his deputy and other invigilators at the centre realised that Munyantabwa avoided sealing the examination answer sheets the previous evening as required by regulations.
 
The regulations stipulate that after any exam, the answer booklet must be returned in the parcel and sealed in the presence of the head of the examination centre, invigilators and security officials deployed at each examinations centre.

On the copies belonging to the girl, the suspect disclosed that the female candidate had not attended school for the entire final year but had sat for the national exams.

So he took them out because according to him, the Ministry in 2008 issued instructions that such a student should not be allowed to sit for the examinations. 

"He claimed that his intention was to remove the answer booklet to avoid sending it to the examinations body since the candidate should not have sat for the examination - although there is a possibility that he could have planned to assist her in the same way he did his son,” said Muvunyi.

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