Independent committee on UPSR 'leak' meets on Sept 24

The independent committee set up by the education ministry to review the management of its public examinations will hold its first meeting on Sept 24 (Wednesday). Its chairman, former chief justice Tun Zaki Tun Azmi said the panel would focus on scrutinising the system and finding ways to enhance the SOP. The committee was set up following the leak in the UPSR 2014 recently involving the Science and English papers. Zaki in a statement, expressed his appreciation to Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also Education minister, for appointing him. He said the committee would carry out its tasks with full responsibility to assure and restore public confidence in the integrity of the government school examinations. Meanwhile, Zaki said he had discussed with Education director general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof on the focus of the review. "My view is that this issue must be expedited, so we have set Sept 24 as the date for the committee's first meeting," he said. Yesterday, Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh named the other members of the panel headed by Zaki. They are Malaysian Institute of Integrity president Datuk Dr Mohd Tap Salleh; former Education deputy director general (Development and Teaching Professionalism) Datuk Dr Asariah Mior Shaharuddin; former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia vice chancellor Tan Sri Profesor Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin; and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Mohamed Tarmizi. Also appointed were Malaysian Government Security director general Datuk Johari Jamaluddin; CyberSecurity Malaysia CEO Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab; former Rural Development deputy minister Tan Sri K. Kumaran; and National Union of the Teaching Profession secretary general Lok Yim Pheng.