{"id":3337,"date":"2026-08-28T16:19:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2026-08-28T16:19:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:19:44","slug":"exam-results-for-7188-students-withheld-over-cheating-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/28\/exam-results-for-7188-students-withheld-over-cheating-probe\/politics\/national\/","title":{"rendered":"Exam results for 7,188 students withheld over cheating probe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The results of 7,188 students who sat Rwanda\u2019s 2025\/26 national examinations have been withheld while authorities investigate suspected cheating, the education minister said Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education Minister Joseph Nsengimana said the results were held back to allow investigators to establish what happened and avoid punishing students unfairly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe investigation involves 7,188 students suspected of cheating,\u201d Nsengimana said in an interview with Rwanda Broadcasting Agency. \u201cTheir results are not released while the investigation is being conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the investigation is taking longer because of the number of cases, but is expected to be completed by Aug. 31. Results for the other candidates were released Aug. 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NESA Director General Dr. Bernard Bahati said suspected cheating was identified both during examinations and while marking scripts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some students were caught with prohibited materials or phones, while other cases were identified after examiners found students from the same school or group had given identical incorrect answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bahati said candidates are deliberately separated during examinations, including students from the same school and those taking the same subject. Similar wrong answers among students who were not seated together can therefore trigger further investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said authorities also found cases in which students were allegedly encouraged or assisted by other people to cheat, rather than bringing prohibited materials into examination rooms themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nsengimana said teachers or examination officials found to have helped students cheat would face disciplinary action under the law. He declined to say whether teachers found responsible would automatically lose their jobs, saying each case would be handled according to the applicable rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot tolerate this because it undermines education,\u201d Nsengimana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students found to have cheated receive zero marks in the subject concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NESA said its procedures for preparing and securing national examinations prevent papers from being accessed before the examination date, and that the cheating cases identified this year occurred on examination days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 277,452 students sat the primary leaving examinations, while 149,533 candidates took the lower secondary, or O-Level, examinations, according to the Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The results of 7,188 students who sat Rwanda\u2019s 2025\/26 national examinations have been withheld while authorities investigate suspected cheating, the education minister said Friday. Education […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,41,34,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current_affairs","category-hot_topics","category-national","category-top_stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3339,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions\/3339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedawnrwanda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}