A Mpumalanga school that recorded the highest number of bachelor passes in the province last year is among those being probed following a matric cheating scandal exposed last month.
Magigwana Secondary in Bushbuckridge is one of several schools in the area that have an exceptionally high number of pupils enrolled for matric, with Grade 12 repeaters from as far afield as Limpopo flocking to study at the institution.
Of the school's 1,005 pupils, 527 were in Grade 12 this year, despite only 243 pupils being in Grade 11 last year. Most came from Tzaneen and Phalaborwa.
Magigwana is among several schools in the province being probed after the discovery of a WhatsApp group, Road to Varsity, which pupils allegedly had to pay teachers to join, and on which answers to matric question papers were posted while exams were in session.
Three other schools, Dlumana High, Nyamazane High and Mugena High, in the Manyeleti circuit in Bushbuckridge, were also fingered in the initial investigation for unusually high numbers of matriculants.
According to reliable sources, officials will investigate what brought the matric pupils to these schools. A whistleblower said he suspected the reason was because pupils “know they would be allowed to cheat in the exams”.
A life sciences teacher from Dlumana High was suspended on November 22 after he allegedly posted answers for the life sciences paper 2 on a WhatsApp group used by teachers — apparently doing this by mistake, having intended to send the answers to cheating pupils.
He deleted the message soon afterwards.
The Sunday Times has learned that the four-member team from the basic education and Mpumalanga education departments visited Magigwana Secondary in Thulamahashe on November 26, as part of the initial probe.
Sources said the investigators included the school in its preliminary probe of four schools in Manyeleti and Thulamahashe because of the high number of bachelor passes it produced last year.
A woman wanted them to deposit money into her account to pass, but I said to them: 'No way, there’s no such thing'
— A woman from Manyeleti
A total of 282 of 378 pupils attending Dlumana High were enrolled in matric this year while 309 of 617 pupils at Nyamazane High were in Grade 12.
The probe was triggered by tip-offs received on the department of basic education’s exam hotline for reporting irregularities regarding several schools in the Manyeleti circuit in Bushbuckridge.
While the report of the preliminary investigation has not been released, the Sunday Times was told invigilators at one of the four schools allowed more than 90 matric pupils to go on bathroom breaks within the first 45 minutes of five different exam papers.
Among them were 31 candidates sitting for maths paper 2 on November 7 who started leaving the room barely 10 minutes after the exam commenced.
Some of the pupils took very long breaks, raising suspicions that invigilators may have been involved in allowing them to cheat.
According to sources, the investigation found that a chief invigilator at one of the schools contravened the regulations after admitting that once the question paper was distributed to candidates, he removed the extras from the exam room and locked them in a safe. No one is allowed to remove question papers from the room while the exam is in progress.
Investigators, according to the people who spoke to the Sunday Times, found that:
- Candidates were caught with cellphones in exam venues although there were metal detectors in place;
- A senior staff member admitted that teachers belonged to WhatsApp groups with pupils from the school; and
- Teachers invigilated exams on subjects they taught, which is against regulations.
A principal of a high school in Bushbuckridge said a school’s enrolment in the lower grades should normally be higher than the Grade 12 enrolment and “not the other way round”.
A woman from Manyeleti, who rents out rooms to pupils, said she had five part-time Grade 12 pupils from Ermelo and Johannesburg who wanted to write the June exams at a specific exam centre “so they could be assisted to copy”.
“But the plan did not work out as that particular exam centre was full. A woman wanted them to deposit money into her account to pass, but I said to them: ‘No way, there’s no such thing.’”
The principal of Magigwana Secondary, Stanley Mpangana, confirmed that officials who visited the school last month had inquired about the large matric enrolment.
“Some of the schools don’t allow matrics who fail to repeat Grade 12 but we allow them to repeat.”
Asked why matric repeaters from Limpopo were attending his school, he said: “Limpopo is always last in the matric results so everybody will send their children to schools where they are passing.”
Mpangana said he was not aware of any cheating in the matric exams at his school.
While the Sunday Times was reliably informed that officials found that several teachers at his school had, according to their personal invigilation timetables, invigilated when papers in their subjects were being written, Mpangana denied this, saying: “The rules don’t allow that.”
The principal of Dlumana High, Moses Mathebula, did not respond to queries. Mugena High and Nyamazane High could not be reached for comment.
Mpumalanga education department spokesperson Jasper Zwane said he could not divulge information that could compromise investigations.
Responding last week to suggestions that pupils used the toilet breaks to cheat, he said “candidates are allowed to respond to the call of nature accompanied by invigilators”.
“We did not receive reports of any unusual tendency in this regard.”
Basic education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said the investigative marking of scripts from about 20 schools sampled in the Manyeleti and Thulamashashe circuits had begun and the outcome would be made public in due course.
He said the full-scale investigation had started and the team was already in the province.
The initial investigation had given the department more reason to probe the four schools as well as other schools in the vicinity to ascertain if the malpractice did not extend to other schools, he said.
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