Johannesburg - Umalusi approved the writing of the 2022 national exams but also warned learners and teachers to refrain from all forms of cheating, including group copying, where teachers are sometimes implicated.
The state of readiness for the end of year exams was announced by the CEO of Umalusi, Mafu Rakometsi, today during a media briefing at Protea Hotel in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg.
The 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) final exams in the country are expected to run from October 31 to December 7. The National Certificate Vocational (NCV) exams will start on October 24 to November 28, while the Nated (N2 – N3) ones are scheduled to take place between November 14 and 30.
Addressing the briefing, Rakometsi sent a stern warning to all stakeholders who are planning on cheating during the exams.
"Once again, as we have done in the past, we would like to issue a stern warning to all learners and teachers to refrain from all forms of cheating, including group copying, where teachers are sometimes implicated. We berate and condemn this criminal practice with the contempt it deserves.
"Cheating compromises the integrity of our national examination system, which we are mandated to jealously protect as a quality council," he said.
He discouraged communities from using national examinations as leverage for their protest actions. "This is unacceptable as it jeopardises the future of our children. The education of our children is something that each and every South African should protect jealously," he added.
In 2020, two question papers (Maths paper 2 and Physical Sciences paper 2) were leaked, which led the Department of Basic Education (DBE) investigative task team to launch a probe into the matter.
It was later reported that the question papers were leaked by a worker whose company was contracted to print the exam papers, and the other leak came from the Government Printing Works.
Rakometsi said the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training has completed its role of monitoring and verifying the readiness of the public and private assessment bodies to manage and conduct the 2022 end-of-the-year national exams.
He said the DBE’s candidature has increased to 923 460 in 2022 from 897 786 in 2021. The department has registered 923 460 matric candidates in 2022, of which 755 981 are full-time and 167 479 are part-time.
The IEB has 13 875 (12 857 in 2021) candidates who will write the examinations at 232 examination centres for full-time candidates and six (6) centres for part-time candidates. These numbers include 15 new IEB schools.
Furthermore, the CEO said the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI), a fully accredited assessment body, will for the first time be managing and conducting the examination after Umalusi granted it accreditation to assess the NSC and General Education and Training Certificate (GETC).
According to Umalusi, the GETC has registered 4 951 part-time NSC candidates, which is a steady increase from 4 361 in 2021. The exams will be written at 85 examination centres compared to 72 centres in 2021.
Rakometsi further commended the DBE, provincial education departments, IEB, SACAI and DHET for continuously improving the systems by introducing innovative ideas. "This innovation helps to strengthen the national examination system," he said.
He also highlighted that load shedding is a serious problem and his opening remarks mentioned that schools should make sure that they tackle the challenges that come with load shedding.
"There are other subjects like IT and CAT where students cannot proceed without electricity," he said. He urged the DBE to bring to the attention of Eskom the dates on which the subjects will be written.
He also said that they are not in full control of the situation (load shedding). "We can only appeal to Eskom, the schools and districts to improvise, and where the situation completely fails, we'll then engage with a plan B."
He maintained that Eskom should be requested to ensure that there is electricity when such subjects are written and further explained that should load shedding happens, plan B must be in place to organise a rewrite for students who would be negatively affected.
"I wish the class of 2022 well in the coming exams," he said.
EDUCATION