The leakages of exam papers have been a major challenge for Zimbabwe for a long time.
innovators’ hub with John Mokwetsi
The technology around reducing this problem has been as elusive as the solution government said it would come up with to solve the problem of traffic offenses and corruption at road blocks.
One remembers the talk of scanners that were smart enough to identify offending drivers and a payment system that did not include paying in hard cash to the traffic police. Well, it never happened, just like many other such government initiatives.
Necessity breeds innovation and maybe entrepreneurs, Tinashe Jambo and Progress Moyo, might have given Mbare (a haven of leaked exam papers) a reason to feel their business will soon be filing for bankruptcy.
Jambo and Moyo are the owners of Microbots, which is a technology design and innovation startup where engineers and innovators collaborate to design and develop embedded systems and IoT (Internet of things) technology solutions.
Jambo, who is at the University of Cape Town, is proud to have come up with an integrated and tailored technology solution to curb examination leakages and manipulation of student answer scripts after exams, ensuring total integrity in the examination process.
In an interview, Jambo said: “Our total solution comprises a tamperproof exam box where examination papers are packaged, a compact sensor enabled GPS tracker which is placed in the box, an electronic seal which locks the box, and a smart key which is used to lock and unlock the electronic seal.”
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He added that the smart key downloads preset permissions once it connects to the central management system.
“Once downloaded, the smart key can be used to interact with the electronic seal even in areas where there is no network coverage. The electronic seal can only be unlocked at the correct geographical position and within the correct window. The student examination answer scripts will be required to be secured within a given window after the examination. Any attempts to access examination papers or failure to secure answer scripts within the allocated times will trigger an alert at the live monitoring control centre.”
Annually over 200 000 students sit for final examinations in Zimbabwe. A compromise in the examination administration system results in loss of confidence in the exams administration body both by the local and international community.
The great innovation, if taken on board by the country, will save the country millions in dollars.
“A compromise in the examination administration process such as a leaked paper or loss of answer scripts will result in loss of significant revenue to the examination board. A re-sit for an examination can cost the administering examination board over $1 million,” Jambo explained.
Lack of confidence in the local examination board forces parents/guardians to opt for alternative examination boards or sending their children abroad to sit under foreign examination boards. The result is loss of significant revenue, which could have otherwise been directly injected into our educational sector.
Jambo and Moyo are still finding ways to innovate by improving their product and looking at cost-effective ways of giving this idea to a bigger constituency.
“We have also designed our custom system comprising a lock powered and unlocked via a universal serial bus cable, using a tablet that can achieve the same result with a lower cost of implementation, which we are looking forward to develop further through the upcoming Ministry of Information and Communication Technology innovation fund.” So who is the target of this innovation?
“We believe these technologies will result in restoration of confidence to our local examination boards and integrity to the examination administration system. We are looking to engage schools, Zimbabwe Schools examination Council, Higher Education Examination Council and Nurses Council of Zimbabwe, which administer exams at a large scale to consider piloting implementation of the technology.”
Do you innovators deserve a day in the sun? E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] can follow me on Twitter @johnmokwetsi and Facebook John Mokwetsi.
