Hon. Frank Habineza Calls for Punishment of Officials Over National Exam Cheating.

More than 7,000 primary school students were affected after investigations found examination malpractice in 254 examination rooms across the country. A total of 7,188 students were subsequently given an opportunity to retake the Primary Leaving Examinations from September 2 to 4, 2026.

The Ministry of Education said the decision to allow the students to retake the examinations followed findings that adults responsible for administering the exams had also been involved in facilitating the cheating.

Education Minister Joseph Nsengiyumva explained that the Ministry had two options after the investigation established the malpractice: cancel the affected examinations and award the students zero marks, or give them another opportunity.

“The investigation showed that cheating and helping students to cheat had taken place in those examination rooms. Once this was established, we had to take decisions based on what had been found. We had two options. We could have followed the existing regulations, under which the examinations would be cancelled and the students given zero marks, meaning many of them would have had to repeat the year.”

The Minister said punishing the students alone would have been too harsh because adults had also played a role in the malpractice.

“However, the investigation also showed that adults, particularly people responsible for administering the examinations, had played a role. Punishing the children by giving them zero marks in all the examinations they had taken would therefore have been too harsh. We chose to protect the interests of the children, which is why we gave them an opportunity to retake the examinations and do them properly.”

Speaking to KPMedia, Hon. Frank Habineza welcomed the Ministry’s decision to give the affected students a second chance.“I thank the Ministry of Education for being able to identify and expose this problem because if it had not been exposed, we would not have known about it. I also appreciate the fact that it gave these children a second chance to sit another examination,” he said.

However, Hon. Frank Habineza said responsibility should fall on the adults who deliberately facilitated the cheating rather than on the students who received the answers.“The children did not steal the examinations; they were given the answers. The teachers who gave them the answers and the officials who were involved should be punished because they committed a crime knowingly, and they also had their own interests, such as making their schools known, getting money and attracting more students. You can see that they deliberately did it,” he said.

 “But the children simply used what they were given; they did not play a role in organising the cheating. I thank the Ministry of Education for giving them a second chance, but I condemn the officials who were involved. They are the ones who should be punished,” he added.Hon. Frank Habineza also called for stronger protection of national examinations, arguing that teachers should prepare students thoroughly rather than disclose questions expected to appear in the exams.

“A professional teacher, even when preparing or marking examinations, should never tell children, ‘This question will come in the examination.’ Instead, they should tell them to study everything because any of it could appear in the examination,” he said.He said the examination-setting process should also involve different teams at different stages to reduce the possibility of papers being compromised.“There are procedures for preparing examinations. Some people should not be the ones who know the final examinations because they prepare them.

There should be another team that puts them together and another that finalises them. There should also be alternative examinations so that if one paper is leaked, it can immediately be removed before the examination and replaced with another,” he argued.

Hon. Frank Habineza said there are many ways of protecting examination security and urged authorities to strengthen the system to ensure that national examinations accurately measure students’ knowledge and abilities.

The scandal has already led to the arrest of 81 people suspected of involvement in the malpractice. The suspects include local government officials, education officials, headteachers, teachers and other school employees. RIB presented 39 of them to the media on September 5.

According to RIB, the suspects are being investigated over offences including abuse of office, breach of professional secrecy, and forgery, falsification or use of forged documents. They remain suspects, and their responsibility will be determined through the legal process.

Hon. Frank Habineza also called for clear rules governing the placement of students in secondary schools after national examinations. He said transparent criteria would help prevent perceptions that some students are placed in prestigious schools for reasons other than their academic performance.

He further urged the Ministry of Education to work closely with the Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagement to ensure that school placement policies support rather than undermine national unity.