Mystery solved over school’s ‘incomplete’ matric results

Twenty-five Laingsburg High School pupils went into a panic when they discovered that their matric results were incomplete because their history paper went missing.

Wayne Willemse said his daughter Chloe did very well, even getting two A aggregates.

But to her shock she noticed that her history mark was missing, which was strange because she had written the two papers.

On querying this, it emerged that she was not the only one. A total of 25 pupils went into a state of despair over how they were going to register for tertiary education, and complete their applications for their 2020 plans with “incomplete” results.

Willemse said they had no idea that there had been a problem until the results came out this week.

His daughter’s plan to go to Stellenbosch University was at risk and the family was in a state.

“The parents want to know why it took so long to say the history papers are gone,” said Willemse. “Now we sit!”

In the meantime, they scrambled to contact the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) to find out what was going on and a meeting was set up for Thursday afternoon.

The WCED communications director Bronagh Hammond said as soon as officials were told about the situation on Wednesday, an investigation was launched.

They found out that the History II paper had indeed not been delivered to the department.

The History I paper had arrived safely and had been marked.

They hunted high and low repeatedly for the exam scripts, and eventually found them securely locked away at the school, still with its electronic lock intact and inside a sealed tamper-proof courier bag.

Arrangements have been made for the immediate marking and moderation of the scripts and it is hoped the results will be in by Saturday.

The results will be available for collection at the school and the principal will inform everybody of what time to collect it.

Willemse said he is pleased that the debacle has been resolved, but noted that the pupils are on tenterhooks over their final marks.

“They won’t be able to rest until Saturday.”

The district director had met with the parents on Thursday afternoon to explain this process.

“We are very disappointed that this error occurred and further investigation is under way to determine why the scripts were not submitted to the WCED, as required,” she said.

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