Hands off female candidates, activists tell male invigilators

Women activists have called on male invigilators to move with caution when checking girls at examination centres.The call follows a furore caused by a picture that was uploaded on Facebook, a social media, allegedly taken from an upcountry centre during the just-concluded national examinations. The picture shows an unidentified male invigilator in a rather awkward checking moment, touching the hips of a female candidate.Invigilators argue that thorough checking helps to curb any chance of a candidate smuggling illegal material into the examination room.However, women activists say what they see in the picture amounts to indecent touch and that the practice may expose female students to sexual assault.“It is akin to sexual abuse of girls and it can put a candidate in uncomfortable situation during the national exams,” said one of the social media users responding to the ‘graphic’ image. ‘It should stop’The National Women Council said the practice is of concern and asked that better means be used to check students.Christine Tuyisenge, the executive secretary of the National Women Council, who was commenting on the photo, said: “It’s as if the teacher had sinister motives; he was insisting on some parts of the body which could make the candidate uncomfortable.”Tuyisenge said, like it is the practice with several agencies such as security, the Ministry of Education should have only female invigilators check girls.“They should dispatch a female and a male invigilator to every examination centre for fair checking like we see in other public events. In case they do not have an equal number of men and women, they can seek support from other teachers who are not among the invigilators, for the sole purpose of checking,” Tuyisenge said.Efforts to get a comment from the Rwanda Education Board were futile, as telephone calls to Emmanuel Muvunyi, the deputy director-general in charge of examinations, went unanswered.Suzanne Ruboneka, the executive secretary of Pro Femmes Twese Hamwe, an umbrella of organisations that advocate for the rights of women, said although the education board has every reason to thoroughly check candidates, there should be a limit to the practice.“No student, not even adults, can feel comfortable being checked by a person of a different sex,” Ruboneka said.Alphonse Nkuranga, the executive secretary of the National Youth Council, said he hoped it was a one-off incident.“People should not take it for granted; someone with selfish motives may take advantage during the checking,” he said.Tuyisenge told this paper that they have raised the issue with the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion to discuss with other concerned ministries and agencies.School heads speak outSome head teachers, who talked to this paper, also called for a limitation on male examination supervisors.Sister Marie Goretti Mukarubayiza, the director of GS Notre Dame de la Providence-Karubanda, a girls school in Huye District, said there is need to adjust on the checking procedures.There is nothing wrong for a man to check a girl, she said, all depends on how they do it.“In our case, the teacher does not need to touch the students. The students open their pockets in front of the teachers, for them to see whether there is nothing inside,” she said.The school receives students from other schools during national exams but the head teacher said, in principle, they always make sure women check female candidates while men check the males.Father Jean Bosco Ntagungira, the head teacher of Petit Seminaire St Vincent de Paul, located in Ndera, Gasabo District also echoed similar remarks.“We prepare everything ahead of national exams; the number of female invigilators is few, but we make sure the boys enter first, then we give the women time to go from one room to another checking the female candidates. It really doesn’t take time,” Ntagungira said.