Court orders Department of Education to publish matric results in newspapers

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) will have to publish matric results on media platforms after the Pretoria High Court ruled in favour of AfriForum on Tuesday.

“[Education Minister, Angie Motshekga] is ordered to publish the National Senior Certificate [NSC] results on public platforms as was the practice in previous years, concurrently with making available the results to the schools that had been attended by the [pupils],” the judgement read.

The department was also ordered to pay the costs of Afriforum and two other parties involved in the case.

Visit The Citizen’s matric portal to view your results and see who South Africa’s top performers are.

Afriforum has since welcomed Judge Anthony Millar’s ruling.

“It is in the public interest that this information is shared on public platforms and that is one of the reasons why we brought this application. We are delighted that the court agreed with us in this argument,” Natasha Venter, Education Rights manager at AfriForum said in a statement.

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The organisation had challenged the decision not to publish matric results, which was unopposed by the department.

The department said on Sunday it will abide by the court’s ruling.

The matric exam results will be released on 20 January, while provinces will then release the results the next day on 21 January.

The department last week announced that matric results will no longer be published on public platforms, saying the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) was behind its decision.

POPIA provides clear rules for the safeguarding of personal information.

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DBE director-general Mathanzima Mweli explained to publish the results on public platforms, the Act required consent from each candidate who sat for last year’s NSC examinations.

More than 730,000 full-time pupils registered to write the 2021 NSC exams, which is the largest number of candidates recorded in years.

Additional reporting by Narissa Subramoney and Sipho Mabena