A number of Tamil school teachers had been arrested from Sept 12 onwards over the leakage of UPSR Science and English papers. Four hundred and seventy thousand pupils are required to re-sit the UPSR Science and English papers on Sept 30.

The media highlight on Tamil school teachers for the leakage of the papers seems dubious and appears s an attempt to shift the blame to someone else.

So far no official from the Examination Syndicate has been arrested. Why were the police so quick in arresting Tamil teachers over the leakage of national school UPSR Science and English papers?

Kuala Lumpur city police chief Tajuddin Md Isa said Examinations Syndicate officers lodged reports about the leak of the UPSR Tamil and Mathematics papers on Sept 21, 2014.

But Tamil school teachers had been arrested since Sept 12, 2014. The UPSR examination questions selection were entirely at the discretion of the Examination Syndicate. Printing, storage in strong rooms and distribution to schools are managed by the officials from the syndicate.

Why were the Tamil teachers targeted and not the Examination Syndicate officials?

The police report on Sept 21 seems an afterthought to legitimise the police action to arrest Tamil school teachers.

Last year in 2013, the SPM Additional Mathematics and Chemistry papers were said to have been leaked. Earlier, the Morals paper was said to have been leaked. There were rumors that examination papers had leaked in the past, too.

Therefore there are serious flaws in the way the Examination Syndicate is safekeeping and distributing these examination papers to schools.

All these things are very disturbing and utterly unacceptable in the context of running fair, balanced and accurate assessments of students through examinations.

There has to be a through check on the entire distribution process and storage of examination papers.

Those who are entrusted to prepare, select the questions, keep them safe and distribute the examination papers must be people of high integrity.

The Education Ministry must restore the integrity and confidence in local public examinations once and for all. Shifting the blame to people outside the examination process and low-level officers does not look good on the senior officials of the Education Ministry.

Suspension announced

The education minister had announced the suspension of Examination Syndicate director Dr Na’imah Ishak and her deputy Dr Wan Ilias Wan Salleh with immediate effect on Sept 12, 2014.

Muhyiddin Yassin said that the two civil servants should be held responsible for having tarnished the image of the ministry and that of public examinations.

But Education Ministry secretary-general Dr Madinah Mohamad clarified on Sept 20 that Dr Na’imah and Dr Wan Ilias had not been suspended from duty but were assigned to other duties unrelated to the Examinations Syndicate to enable the independent committee to carry out its investigations.

Meanwhile, Madinah said that the Education Ministry will take disciplinary action against all the teachers responsible for the leak of the English and Science papers in this year’s UPSR examinations. She added that if any of the teachers are charged in court, they would be temporarily suspended from service with a 50 percent salary cut.

The Education Ministry must be transparent and come clean on the investigation and on efforts to restore a more leakage-proof examination system.

S RAMAKRSHNAN is a former senator.