Security breach: Students asked to re-sit Cambridge exams

[Erica Absetz <erica () riskbasedsecurity com>]

http://tribune.com.pk/story/558591/security-breach-students-asked-to-re-sit-cambridge-exams/

Authorities cite security breach of examination papers as the reason
behind the rescheduling of exams. This year, unofficial estimates say,
20,000 students across the country sat the exams of the two compulsory
subjects.

“The integrity of the examination papers for these two subjects has
been compromised,” British Council, Pakistan – convenor of the CIE
exams – said in a statement. “To ensure the continuing integrity of
our exams and results, students are required to re-take examinations
for the two subjects.”

Empathising with the sentiments of scholars and their families, the
institution says despite inconvenience, their foremost priority is to
ensure fair results for all Cambridge students.

British Council’s marketing and communication manager, Shahid Abbas,
said at this point they can only verify that the breach of security
was not initiated in Pakistan and the local British Council was not
party to the compromise.

Without commenting on the matter further, Abbas said investigations
are under way and the findings will be declared by June 5.

CIE spokesperson in Pakistan, Uzma Yousuf, reiterated that the
security lapse did not take place in Pakistan.

“It happened in another country. Details cannot be revealed but
investigations are under way,” she told The Express Tribune.  “We had
received substantial evidence on the security compromise, which was
enough [for authorities] to take a decision.”

Yousuf added that the decision was unlikely to affect the future of
students as they were not applying anywhere for higher studies at this
stage.

After appearing in the rescheduled exams, results of the Islamiat and
Pakistan Studies will also be released on August 13 along with rest of
the results of June 2013 exam series, explained Abbas.

For students who cannot sit the new exams, the CIE via British Council
will not announce the results. All such candidates, said Abbas, may
sit for these subjects again in the November 2013 exam series.

As for now, the British Council officials had no response as to
whether the students’ registration fee will be carried forward, in
case they fail to appear in the two exams on June 13 and 14 and re-sit
the exams in November 2013.

Pakistan students had made over 180,000 entries for O’ level and A’
level exams this year via more than 500 Cambridge qualifications
offering schools or directly through the British Council as private
candidates, Yousuf said.
_______________________________________________
Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () datalossdb org)
Archived at http://seclists.org/dataloss/
Unsubscribe at http://datalossdb.org/mailing_list

Supporters:

Risk Based Security (http://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/)
Risk Based Security equips organizations with security intelligence, risk
management services and on-demand security solutions to establish
customized risk-based programs to address information security and
compliance challenges.