Zimbabwe School Examinations Council Amendment Bill HB 4,2025

This is a Bill — H.B. 4 of 2025 — not law. It proposes amendments to the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council Act and takes effect only if passed and brought into operation.

The sharpest proposal is institutional liability. Where more than half the candidates at a registered institution are found to have acted contrary to the Act — before, during or after an examination — the Council would be required to prohibit that institution from organising, supervising or acting as an examination centre for a period the Council determines. The Council would then organise and supervise examinations for the affected students at the suspended institution's expense, and where an alternative centre is provided, that institution bears those costs too. For a school running a mass malpractice operation, the cost would fall on the school rather than on its candidates.

New individual offences would be added. Representing that you or someone else is in possession of examination material, altering a candidate's original answer script, and altering the Council's examination or results records without lawful authority would each carry a fine up to level 7 or imprisonment up to two years, or both. Forging, altering, offering, uttering or disposing of a document purporting to show an examination result, knowing it to be forged or altered, would carry a fine up to level 14 or imprisonment up to five years — a substantially heavier penalty aimed at the trade in fake certificates.

The Council would also gain the power to de-register examination centres, not merely to register and monitor them, subject to regulations made under section 36.

On governance, the Board would be recomposed: up to three representatives from State universities and up to three from private universities, one person nominated by the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, a registered legal practitioner appointed after consultation with the Law Society of Zimbabwe, one person nominated by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, the Chief Executive Officer, and five people appointed for knowledge or experience in audit, human resources, finance, information technology and risk management. The Board would meet at least four times a year instead of three, and would itself appoint the members of its Finance Committee. The title "Director" would become "Chief Executive Officer" throughout, and the Council's financial year end would move from 30 June to 31 December.

Several drafting slips survive in the Bill as published. Clause 8 is headed "Amendment of section 12 of Cap 12:06" but in fact amends section 35 of Chapter 25:18. It announces the insertion of paragraphs "(g), (h), (i), and (j)" but sets out only (g), (h) and (i). The recomposed Board list letters two different paragraphs "(e)". And the short title clause provides that the Act "may be cited as the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council Amendment Bill, 2025" rather than as an Act.