As you probably well know, A Level results for those who sat for ZIMSEC examinations in November 2019 last year came out yesterday. Again since last year students now have the option to view their results last year. This is good as it means you can at least see your results without having to pay for busfare and eerr outstanding fees.

Holding former students captive

A lot of schools have traditionally used results as leverage when it comes to demanding all sorts of payments from students. Ranging from lost book fees and outstanding fees. More often than not schools have always felt that this is the only way they can get students to pay what they owe. So they withdraw results until the student has paid whatever it is the school feels they owe. Never mind it is illegal.

The online results portal has thrown a spanner in all that. It means that students can get results from the comfort of their homes without wasting money paying for busfare if you wrote your exams at a remote centre, a boarding school for example, but it also means the student no longer has to contend with the demands of their former school.

As the pass rate shows a lot of students don’t do well in their examinations. What incentive does a student have to pay what they owe just so they can get a slip when they know they have failed?

Some schools resorting to hacking

Unfortunately the online results portals which can be found here:

have a pretty glaring weakness. They can be easily hacked in a way that can make it hard for specific students from viewing their results online. They just create an account in the name of the student. When the student tries to create an account they will be told the account already exists.

Last year that would have been the end of the road. It would have meant the student would not be able to view their results. This year there is a way around all the student needs to do is to click on the reset-password button.

This will basically allow you to recreate your account and thwart those attempts. You just have to pick a new username and password and use your candidate number and other details.