VIENTIANE: Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin urged the police to carry out immediate investigation into the leakage of UPSR examination Science and English papers and to bring the culprit to justice.
In expressing his regrets and anger over the unprecedented incident, Muhyiddin who is also Education Minister, once again offered his sincere apologies to the 473,176 pupils who were affected by the incident and their parents.
Muhyiddin said the ministry would review current standard operating procedure (SOP) in preparing and handling examination papers to improve their secrecy and integrity.
"The ministry will form a special committee as announced by Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh earlier today to investigate the incident and identify the perpetrator.
"The committee will look into the existing SOP so that we can further improve examination papers’ secrecy and integrity," he said at a press conference with Malaysian media on the sideline of the 8th Asean Education Ministers' Meeting (Ased) here today.
Muhyiddin said he was shocked by the leakages as the same system was tested and proven for years.
"I am very disappointed and upset with the unprecedented incident as the existing system had been working well all these years.
"Sadly, it takes only one person to do the damage, I regard this as an act of sabotage to compromise mine and the ministry's integrity," he said.
Muhyiddin was commenting on reports that the UPSR English papers held today was also rescheduled to Sept 30, a day after it was discovered that the Science papers were leaked.
Yesterday, the ministry had decided to postpone the Science paper to Sept 30 after it was confirmed that it was leaked prior to the examination day.