Johannesburg -
A criminal syndicate is believed to be behind the theft and sale to students of exam papers that resulted in Unisa postponing a number of its examinations in May this year and November last year.
While the university claims it has tightened security measures around its exam processes, it confirmed last week that the question-paper leaks were wider than the university had anticipated.
“So far we can confirm that our investigations have revealed that the problem is more complex than initially understood, and that it involves both staff and students, crime syndicates, racketeering and wide-reaching corruption,” said university spokesman Martin Ramotshela.
“We have also gone to the extent of requiring all our invigilators to reapply for their jobs and they were subject to stringent checks.
“Persons with criminal records and those with adverse credit ratings were excluded.”
While the university has launched its own internal investigations, SAPS crime intelligence has been roped in to crack the alleged syndicate.
In May this year the university was forced to postpone scheduled examinations for four modules when it emerged that the question papers had been leaked and sold to students.
The postponement of the examinations affected 12 000 students.
It was not the first time that Unisa exams had been compromised.
Five suspects were arrested last year for allegedly stealing exam papers from the Pretoria campus, resulting in the postponement of the affected examinations.
According to the university, nine students who were found guilty of buying question papers have been dismissed and banned for life from studying at Unisa.
The university has this year been at pains to defend the integrity of its examinations, following further reports that dented the integrity of its marking process.
This was after it was revealed that there might have been discrepancies in the marking and assessment of some of its examinations and assignments.
Unisa was forced to conduct a review of its assessment processes, which in some cases had seen groups of students receiving the same marks in certain modules.
The Sunday Independent