Umalusi clears release of matric results on Thursday

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Education quality assurance body Umalusi has confirmed that the 2022 matric results will be released on Thursday, enabling pupils to get their statement of results at their schools on Friday.

Umalusi chairperson Professor Yunus Ballim told  journalists on Monday that the process of establishing the integrity and credibility of the results had been rigorous. He spoke against the backdrop of reports of cheating in some exams and errors in question papers.

The National Senior Certificate (NSC) results administered by the department of basic education, the Independent Examinations Board and the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute had all been approved, Ballim said.

Chief executive Dr Mafu Rakometsi said Umalusi had received reports from various assessment bodies which had uncovered different forms of cheating during the examinations.

“These include candidates found in possession of crib notes and/or cellphones; sharing of answers via WhatsApp groups; imposters found in the examination rooms and answer scripts had different handwritings,” he said.

Ballim said the irregularities that surfaced during the examinations and during the process of marking were not systematic and therefore the overall credibility and integrity of the NSC examinations was not compromised.

“Having studied all the evidence presented, the executive committee of the Umalusi council concluded the examination was administered largely in accordance with the regulations pertaining to the conduct, administration and management of the NSC examination,” he said.

Rakometsi said action had been taken against the pupils, educators and invigilators implicated in cheating.

“Based on the magnitude of the offences, different sanctions have been meted against candidates involved, such as the nullification of the results, barring the candidates from writing the examination for either one or two examination cycles,” he said.

Rakometsi also highlighted the reasons for the delay in the results being released, which included the Covid-19 pandemic, load-shedding and disruptions caused by protests.

“With regard to load-shedding, Umalusi is pleased that all assessment bodies heeded the advice to make alternative arrangements,” he said.

“We acknowledge the class of 2022 suffered the worst part of Covid-19, in that they were confronted with a disrupted academic year when in grades 10 and 11.”

He said Umalusi was satisfied with the kinds of interventions that the department of education and other bodies had put in place to reduce the negative effects of learning time lost because of the pandemic. Rakometsi applauded the actions that had shielded teachers and pupils from protests, ensuring that the examination process ran smoothly.

Although there were no reports of leaked examination papers, Umalusi noted that pupils had difficulty answering some of the questions in some subjects during the exams.

This comes after candidates complained that a question in their maths paper two trigonometry exam was “unsolvable”. Rakometsi said this question and others had been excluded from the marking process.

“These problematic questions resulted in marking concessions being applied by the relevant assessment bodies for them to be excluded either entirely or partially from the question papers. Some requests were granted, some rejected,” he said.

“Such errors are not justified and are therefore regrettable,” he said.