As matric exams kick off on Monday with English paper 1, it has emerged that 935 pupils from 20 schools in Mpumalanga have been banned from writing after they were found guilty of cheating in last year’s sitting.
Yet the disciplinary case of a teacher from Dlumana High School in Manyeleti, Mpumalanga, who allegedly posted answers for a life sciences paper on a WhatsApp group during last year’s exams, has still not been finalised.
This comes as some provinces have implemented additional security measures to prevent cheating, such as banning pupils from wearing wrist watches and installing super scanners to detect cellphones at exam centres.
Exams quality assurer Umalusi and the Mpumalanga education department have confirmed that the 935 pupils' results have been nullified and they have been barred from writing the exams for three sittings. This includes the June and November exams this year, as well as the June exams next year.
They will be eligible to write their matric exams only in October/November next year.
The Dlumana High School teacher was suspended on November 22 last year after sharing exam answers in a WhatsApp group called “The Road to Varsity” used by teachers and allegedly pupils. He deleted the message soon afterwards.
During a probe by national and provincial education officials last year, the Sunday Times was told that invigilators at one school allowed more than 90 matric pupils to go on bathroom breaks within the first 45 minutes of five exam papers. Among them were 31 pupils doing maths paper 2 on November 7, who started leaving the room barely 10 minutes into the exam.
The Sunday Times also heard of how a chief invigilator contravened the regulations after admitting that, once question papers had been 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 an exam room while the assessment is in progress.
Other irregularities included candidates caught with cellphones in exam venues, even though there were metal detectors in place, and teachers invigilating exams on subjects they taught, which is against the regulations.
Some provinces have implemented additional security measures to prevent cheating, such as banning pupils from wearing wrist watches and installing super scanners to detect cellphones at exam centres
However, except for the Dlumana High School teacher, who has been charged with misconduct, no other official, teacher or principal is facing disciplinary sanctions.
Commenting on the nullification of the Mpumalanga pupils’ results, Umalusi spokesperson Biki Lepota said the pupils had been called to disciplinary hearings.
“Individual learners would have received the results of the subjects in which there was no evidence of an irregularity. However, such learners cannot [receive their full results] given [that the] results of the subject implicated [are missing].”
He said Umalusi would continue to follow up on the case of the Dlumana High School teacher “so that this matter can be finalised as soon as practically possible”.
Commenting on the teacher’s case, Mpumalanga education department spokesperson Jasper Zwane said the investigation of labour cases “[was] laborious and require[d] due diligence”.
Speaking about this year’s arrangements, he said district officials, and not principals, had been appointed as chief invigilators at schools. “No learner implicated in irregularities is allowed to write exams until the lapse of the sanction period.”
Zwane said full-time monitors and departmental officials, who were also responsible for transporting question papers and collecting answer scripts, had been assigned to high-risk centres.
Prof Labby Ramrathan from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said the delay in finalising the case involving the Dlumana High School teacher was a “system failure”.
He said South Africa needed a swift and robust system of disciplinary action. “The protracted delays contribute to the general apathy towards crime and professional dishonesty.”
More than 723,000 full-time candidates will write matric exams this year.
Western Cape education MEC David Maynier told the Sunday Times the province had stringent criteria in place to identify suitable markers and had initiated a second round of marker appointments “so that we have the required number of markers”.
Northern Cape education spokesperson Geoffrey van der Merwe said his department struggled to find enough markers for history, Afrikaans home language, English home language, technical maths and technical science every year.
“Fortunately, the prescribed marking period and low registration throughout the province [will] enable the appointed markers to complete marking the scripts within the set marking period.”
Eastern Cape education spokesperson Mali Mtima said the State Security Agency had given the province the “thumbs up” for complying with the required standards.
His department had to engage in a second recruitment drive to find enough markers for English home language and Afrikaans home language and first additional language.
Meanwhile, the Gauteng education department said the national department had declared wrist watches would not be allowed in exams this year “to eliminate all possible means via which learners can access and share information digitally”.
“The department has introduced the use of super scanners at exam centres to mitigate the smuggling in of cellphones,” it said.
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