Names to be omitted from matric results
JOBURG - Rushing out to get a copy of the newspaper in the hope of scouring it for the names of matric pupils you may know will be futile when the results are released in January. However, pupils’ names will not feature.
According to the Department of Basic Education, matric results published in the newspapers would only reflect the ID and exam numbers of pupils and not their names.
It was decided during the Council of Education Ministers’ meeting on 25 November that publishing of individual pupil’s results should be reviewed, spokesperson for the department Elijah Mhlanga said in a statement.
“However, the ministers resolved that the results for this year would still be published in newspapers this year, but will only reflect the pupils’ ID and exam numbers,” Mhlanga said.
The decision to omit pupils’ names was made after a task team recommended that the practice of publishing individual names be reviewed, Mhlanga said.
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) lashed out at the basic education department for deciding to continue publishing matric results.
The students’ organisation said the practice of publicising matric results should be scrapped completely.
“It is a violation of the pupils’ right to privacy; any results should be for the individual and should not be published for the public,” the organisation’s national spokesperson Zama Khanyase said.
“When a pupil looks for their name in the paper and finds that it is not there, they are demoralised and embarrassed and there is no form of proper counselling; therefore, some commit suicide and others just give up hope.”
She added that inaccuracies that were known to creep into the published results in the newspapers contributed to this problem.
However, she said when pupils sourced their results directly from their schools, they were given the correct information and teachers were able to council those who had performed poorly as well as advise them of their options.
The organisation was further concerned by the move to display pupils’ ID numbers and questioned what measures had been put in place to ensure that pupils were not exposed to fraud or any other form of danger as a result.
The 2014 matric results would be released on 5 January next year.
