TUMPAT: FORMER chief justice Tun Zaki Azmi has been appointed the chairman of the newly-formed special committee to improve the standard operating procedure of the Malaysian Examination Board (MEB) and the handling of national examination papers.
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in announcing this yesterday, said Zaki had accepted the appointment following the establishment of the committee on Monday.
Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, said the names of eight other panel members would be announced in the next few days.
“It has been given specific terms of reference, including improving the operations of MEB and focusing on national examination papers.
“It also involves the printing of examination papers, security process and standard operating procedure that are normally used and improvements to be made, based on the best practices of other countries.”
Muhyiddin said the committee had three months to complete its work and that he had confidence in the panel to accomplish its task on time as its duties were not complicated.
The special committee was formed in the wake of the leak of this year’s Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) Science and English papers.
Police obtained a four-day remand order against a 34-year-old engineer to assist in investigation into the leak of the exam papers.
Magistrate Mohd Raihan Mohd Aris yesterday granted an application for the suspect, who was arrested in Kemaman, Terengganu, to be held until Friday.
The proceedings were held at the Jinjang police lock-up, where the suspect was taken from the Putrajaya police headquarters by a team of plainclothes police around noon.
The engineer was the seventh suspect to be arrested.
Six others — a headmaster, four teachers and an insurance agent, aged between 30 and 50 — were picked up on Sunday in a series of raids in Penang, Parit Buntar in Perak, Kuala Ketil in Kedah and Sentul in Kuala Lumpur.
On Monday, police obtained four-day remand orders against the headmaster and two teachers, all from primary schools in Penang, along with the insurance agent, to assist in investigation. The other two teachers from Parit Buntar and Kuala Ketil were released after their statements were recorded.
The suspects are being investigated under Section 8(1) of the Official Secrets Act 1972 for possession of official secrets and communicating such information to others.
Police have also questioned six MEB officers and a journalist.
The leak, which triggered outrage from parents, forced 473,175 pupils from 8,384 schools nationwide to resit the papers on Sept 30.