DUBAI - The Ministry of Education (MoE) has decided to empower education zones to conduct and supervise the Grade 12 examinations of government and Arabic private schools that follow the ministry’s curriculum and centralise the evaluation of answer sheets from the current academic year.
The amended examination system would be announced this week, official sources at the ministry said.
The Ministry of Education has decided to withdraw the powers delegated to the schools to hold examinations of Grade 12 on their respective campuses, which had been in effect over the last two years.
The decision was taken after senior officials at the ministry and directors of educational zones learnt that these powers had been misused by some school managements and officials some of whom were referred to the public prosecution recently for leaking answer sheets and forging answer sheets, the sources said.
Allegations included showing students closely related to principals correct answers and school managements instructing their teachers to take it easy while evaluating answer papers so that their students scored high marks.
According to the decision, which was taken after thorough investigations, the education zones would conduct the examinations and evaluation of answer papers would be centralised.
The MoE has decided to introduce these changes to add credibility to the examination system which would be supervised and controlled by the educational zones, Dr Fawziya Badri, Executive Director for Educational Affairs at the MoE, said in a meeting she presided at the ministry’s office in Dubai on Thursday.
The new system would be announced this week, and would coincide with the beginning of the first and second semester examinations, which will be held in a number of government schools to be announced by education zones.
Mohsen Rashid