The UPSR exam paper leaks have undoubtedly put the country in shame. Someone must be held responsible and punished for this scandal in order to answer to the parents of 473,175 candidates.
The thing is, this whole issue has been caused by human negligence, but our deputy prime minister cum education minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said the leaks have been a smear tactic targeting him.
If exam paper leaks were an ill-intentioned ploy, then the ministry and police should make an effort to single out the perpetrators.
Although exam paper leaks have occurred regularly over the past two decades, we have yet to hear any similar accusation from any minister or senior government official.
Could it be that the situation this time is a little different from past years? It is necessary for the ministry to offer a more explicit explanation.
The frequency of exam paper leaks over the years points to the fact that indeed irregularities do exist in the question setting, printing, packing, delivery and custody procedures, but our government officials have not looked into this issue seriously.
The incident could have been caused by a small group of irresponsible people, but the consequences are grave as plenty of valuable resources and manpower have been squandered.
For instance, the UPSR exam this year involves more than 430,000 pupils, 51,438 invigilators and 8,299 exam halls, entailing significant social cost if the Science and English papers have to be retaken.
Like any other similar incidents, an independent committee will be set up after each occurrence of exam paper leak to investigate the root causes and map out the standard operating procedure, among others.
However, such efforts have never produced any solid results as exam paper leaks continue to take place year after year.
Some say where there is demand, there is supply. So, it is the market demand that causes the leaks.
This has nevertheless oversimplified things, conveniently pushing the culprits' responsibility to the pupils, parents and tuition centres.
UPSR exam paper leaks show that the government has failed to make use of sound mechanisms to block out such malpractices to ensure error-free operations.
Many government agencies lack prudent supervisory mechanisms. Even though the government often stresses SOP, no supervisory mechanisms have been put in place to ensure their smooth practice.
If the Education Ministry has a good set of supervisory mechanisms in place, the management will be able to notice any irregularity along the way.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission recently cracked the largest smuggling case involving government officials in recent years. Twenty-four people were detained, of whom 12 were Customs officials, including a state department chief.
This is not the first time the MACC has probed into the Customs Department.
On March 28, 2011, it probed into 25 Customs offices nationwide in collaboration with several government agencies although the operation has since been suspended after a Selangor Customs official fell to his death at the MACC's headquarters.
Officials from other enforcement agencies, including Immigration, have also been accused of corrupt practices from time to time.
There is no way for the MACC to wipe out corruption through such non-specified random checks. The manpower of the anti-corruption agency is far from being sufficient to oversee some 1.5 million public servants in this country.
Consequently, the most effective way to cut down malpractices, wastage and irregularities is to fortify the supervisory mechanisms.
Without tackling the root causes of problems, irregularities are bound to keep popping up and our ministers will keep scrambling to fix their problems. – mysinchew.com
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