Umalusi concerned over cheating during NSC exams, but approves 2022 matric results

The council for quality assurance in education, Umalusi, has given the green light for the release of the 2022 matric results.

Umalusi briefed the media on Monday, with the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results set to be released later this week.

Delay

During the press conference, Umalusi CEO Mafu Rakometsi said Covid-19 delayed the release of the matric results.

Since schools reopened late in 2022, Rakometsi said this had a knock off effect on examinations which started on 31 October.

“While we acknowledge that the class of 2022 might have suffered the worst part of Covid-19 in that they were confronted with a disrupted academic year when in Grade 10 and 11,” he said.

Rakometsi, however, pointed out that Umalusi was satisfied with the interventions put in place by the Department of Basic Education to limit the lost time due to the pandemic.

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He also noted that the exams experienced some hinderances such as load shedding and community protests.

“With regard to load shedding, Umalusi is pleased that all assessment bodies heeded the advice to make alternative arrangements to mitigate the possibility of load shedding.”

In December last year, the Department of Education and Umalusi acceded to requests for some pupils to rewrite some of their exams – including Mathematics Paper 2 – following disruptions in some parts of the country.

Rakometsi said Umalusi “appreciated” that pupils and teachers were shielded from community protests and to ensure the examination process was conducted in an ethical and quality manner.

Cheating

Umalusi also expressed concern over allegations of cheating which were uncovered in some centres during the examinations.

“These include candidates found in possession of crib notes or cell phones, sharing of answers via WhatsApp groups, imposters were found in the examination rooms, some answer scripts had different handwritings,” Rakometsi said.

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Action has since been taken against the pupils implicated.

“Based on the magnitude of the offences, different sanctions have been meted against the candidates involved such as the nullification of the results, barring the candidates from writing the examination for either one or two examination cycles.

“Umalusi gives commendation to all the assessment bodies for having uncovered the malpractices and dealing with the culprits,” the Umalusi CEO continued.

Exam questions

While there were no examination papers leaks, Umalusi noted the questions that pupils found difficult in some subjects during the exams.

According to Rakometsi, some of these questions were excluded from the marking process because of their “problematic nature”.

“These problematic questions resulted in marking concessions being applied for by the relevant assessment bodies for them to be excluded either entirely or partially from the question papers. Some of the requests for marking concessions were granted whereas others were rejected.”

On 7 November, matriculants sat to write their Mathematics Paper 2 exam and later complained about an “unsolvable” trigonometry question.

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The difficult question 5.1, worth seven marks, was flagged by enraged pupils across the country, with calls to probe it amid fears that it might affect their grades.

In its response, Umalusi appointed a three-member panel to investigate what led to the “problematic” question to be included in the exam.

“No marks were allocated to question 5.1 thereby reducing the total for 150 marks to 143 to all candidates. Such errors are not justified and are, therefore, regrettable. Umalusi wishes to apologise profusely for these errors in question papers,” Rakometsi added.

He further urged candidates, who applied to write exams from centres that are not registered, to visit Umalusi’s website to check if they were accredited.

Approval

Meanwhile, Umalusi chairperson, Professor Yunus Ballim said the council has adjusted the standardisation of exams.

“The process is quite involved and rigorous. This is done to safeguard the integrity and credibility of all the results presented.”

Ballim said the results of the NSC examinations administered by the department, Independent Examinations Board (IEB) and South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI) have, therefore, been approved.

He indicated that any irregularities found during the exams as well as the marking process did not compromise the credibility and integrity of the results.

Pupils implicated in irregularities, however, will have their results withheld until investigations have been completed.

There were about 900 000 candidates who sat for their matric exams.

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