The Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) has called for punitive measures against Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) examining staff and school authorities who aid in leaking question papers to candidates.

This comes after ZIMSEC nullified the results of nearly 5,000 Ordinary Level candidates for alleged cheating during the 2022 end of year public examinations.

ARTUZ said punishing the students for crimes that involved the examination board itself and some school authorities was unfair.

"Paper leakages are a syndicate of the examining staff who have access to ZIMSEC archives and the student who pays or gets the paper after it has been stolen from the exam body.

"So punishing the student without also holding the one who gave them the paper accountable is unfair," said ARTUZ on Twitter.

According to the Herald 4,961 candidates had their results nullified after ZIMSEC established that they had accessed question papers prior to writing the examinations.

ZIMSEC chairperson Professor Eddie Mwenje said, Friday, that the cheats accounted for 1.78 percent of the 278,760 candidates who sat for the end of year examinations.

The overall pass rate was 28.96 percent.

While some of the alleged cheats were identified while sitting for the examinations, others were flushed out during marking and grade reviews.

Examination papers which were said to have been leaked were mainly for Mathematics and English.

The credibility of the country's school examinations system has for years been under siege from cheats who access question papers prior to the date of writing, prompting authorities to rope in the police to fight the scourge.

ZIMSEC and school authorities have blamed each other for the leakages, with ZIMSEC insisting that the leakages occur outside its offices and at examination centres.