Online school leaves parents frustrated, students in limbo over outstanding marks

An online school has left parents and students frustrated – and in limbo – after a complete record of their 2022 report cards is yet to be released.

SEAT Academy, which is registered with the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI) as a distance learning centre for Grade 10 to 12, has come under fire from parents due to missing marks on their children’s report and has, in turn, negatively affected a number of students’ academic performance.

Some pupils have been unable to progress to varsities due to SEAT Academy’s incomplete report cards.

Some parents have also raised concerns over the lack of communication and management at the school. They have also listed other problems including the constant changing of tutors, cancellation of classes, and a lack of report cards to monitor their children’s progress.

‘They have taken our money’

According to one disgruntled parent, Jacqualine, two of her son’s subjects did not have final results. The subjects were instead allocated a ‘777’ code, meaning there was an outstanding mark.

“We made our way to the portal to see my son’s results and we saw that he has failed! Not because he actually failed, but because SEAT has failed to provide SACAI with the relevant information or marks. In our case, Consumer Studies and Tourism do not have marks,” Jacqualine told The Citizen.

She said when parents tried to get explanations from the school, they were ignored.

“Some kids do not even have complete report cards from term one, two and three. Throughout 2022 parents have been raising their concerns with SEAT management to absolutely no avail.

“They blatantly ignore you and when they do reply they say we are working on improving, but nothing changes. Classes were constantly cancelled because the tutors were not being paid. Tasks and exams students submitted just went missing from their side. They have taken our money, but have failed to provide a service.”

While her son will not be studying further, Jacqualine said he is discouraged after being left without a National Senior Certificate (NSC) qualification.

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“I tried to get my son into a mainstream school to do his matric. However, no school I contacted wanted to take him because they were concerned that he had done online schooling and was not up to par to do a conventional matric and this could affect their pass rate. We had no choice but to see it through with SEAT Academy.

“My son is feeling angry and discouraged. He knows he has worked harder than his marks reflect and believes that if the correct marks are allocated, he would have passed. He wants to put this behind him and move on.”

Another complainant, Resh, told The Citizen that two of her nephews – who were in Grade 10 and 12 – were enrolled with SEAT for 2022 academic year.

“The matriculants marks were all wrong for all three terms and some marks were 0%. The same applies to the Grade 10 student. We tried calling SEAT Academy numerous times, but to no avail,” she said.

“The kids are very disappointed that even though all their assignments were submitted they failed. I cry daily because the disappointment on their faces and the pain in their eyes show.

“Matric is supposed to be an exciting year as it the last year of school life, but I have one matriculant who is so sad. Then my grade 10, he also lost one whole month as no school will accept him until he gets his report.”

Watch: Educational psychologist on the challenges of being in matric

Non-payment

SEAT Academy CEO, John Volkwyn, meanwhile, acknowledged the challenges the school has had in the past year and said they were trying to address them.

“I’m aware of the allegations and we are dealing with it, but there are two sides to the story. All students whose fees are updated, they have all received their reports,” he said on Monday.

Volkwyn claimed that the school, which was founded in 2020, had over 2 400 students registered across the country for last year’s academic year.

Nearly a 100 of these students were matriculants – 16 of whom failed and 19 passed – while the rest had marks that were missing, according to the SEAT Academy CEO.

He explained that more than 1 200 pupils owed the academy around R4 million in outstanding fees.

“Unfortunately what happened last year is that a lot of parents would not pay us and a result of that is we struggled to pay our staff. We had most of the staff resigning and because of that there were delays in marking. In the last term, we basically had outside markers to make sure that everything gets marked for the year,” Volkwyn said.

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“We spent over R100 000 to R200 000 to make sure all that marking [of school-based assessments] gets done so that we are able to give learners their reports.”

Volkwyn also pointed out that the school was withholding report cards of Grade 10 and 11 pupils due to non-payment.

“So right now, we are currently sitting on the reports of lots of learners [because] we haven’t been paid for the year. We allowed learners to continue despite the fact that the parents weren’t paying. We have got the kids reports, but they must pay what the owe us and we will release the reports.”

Some parents, however, say the issue of non-payment was “not their problem”.

“I have paid in full,” Jacqualine said, while Resh labelled this as “an excuse”.

“That’s not the point. Our point is [Volkwyn] messed up his institute and the kids’ lives were destroyed.”

According to the National Protocol on Assessments for Grade R to 12, parents or guardians have the right of access to report cards of their children. The legislation prohibits public and private schools from withholding report cards for any reason, including the non-payment of school fees.

‘We have to take ownership’

Meanwhile, Volkwyn told The Citizen SEAT was looking to address the outstanding marks issue with regards to Grade 12s, but parents who have paid their fees need to resubmit the assessments – which make up 25% of their final results.

“We communicated to those that by the 6th of February, we need to have the practicals and oral tasks have been submitted. We are working with SACAI in order to make sure that happens. Even at this stage, we are allowing the learners to [complete their task] so they are resulted.

Volkwyn said the shortage of teachers meant their marking was completed late.

“[The marks issue] was a case of timing because we finished our marking and submitted them to SACAI late so they didn’t reflect on the reports. So we are in a process where SACAI would be able to resubmit the marks to Umalusi and those learners would be resulted in about the next three months,” he continued.

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“We have to take ownership as well on our side. [This whole situation] was a combination of non-payment, change of staff at SEAT Academy and also our system. But we are looking to improve those systems to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. We are being guided by SACAI in this process.”

He also said some parents should be blaming their own children for the poor marks.

“For example, a learner got 19% for [a subject] and they blame SEAT Academy for the three term results because of the assignments issue, but if you do the math they wouldn’t have passed irrespective because 75% was from the final exam.

“With regards to the ‘777’ [code], we are dealing with that issue. But with regards to the ‘999’ code issue, if someone didn’t write their exam at the end of the year they can’t blame the academy for that.”

‘Positive cycle’

Volkwyn said a debt collection company is assisting the school in resolving the issue of non-payment.

“We can’t say ‘sorry, we are writing it off’. They haven’t paid us what we are owed, but the parents are expecting us to give them the reports.”

He added that 500 students have been registered for the 2023 academic year.

“This year, we are looking at a positive cycle. We got a much smaller staff so they will be a lot more efficient. We have learnt our lessons from last year.”

Volkwyn also provided clarity on the new school – called Chosen Generation Christian Academy – that SEAT had intended to launch. Some parents had raised concern about this.

“This was not hidden from anybody. It would have been a separate brand from SEAT Academy similar to other tutor centres, but we have not gone through with it because as soon as we tried to, there was backlash from parents.

“Some of the senior staff and [myself] have being attacked personally because they … say we started another business with this business. At the end of the day, we have decided not to go ahead with it because of the viciousness of people.”

‘Three-year programme’

The Citizen also spoke to SACAI CEO Keith Maseko who said his institution, which is accredited by Umalusi, was a private assessment body like the Independent Examinations Board (IEB).

“SACAI should not be confused [as being] an accreditor or regulator. We are neither of them. Our core business is to design and put together the matric exams,” he said.

Asked what steps a school needs to take to register with SACAI, Maseko said learning institutions have to run a programme for a full year before they can register Grade 12s.

“This means that SEAT Academy registered with us in 2021 for Grade 10 and 11 because SACAI, as an assessment body, we only assess the NSC qualification.

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“Remember matric essentially begins in Grade 10. That is what people don’t know. It’s like a Bachelor’s degree because it’s a three-year programme.

“We told SEAT Academy that we want to see how they run the school. In 2021, there were no issues. They were under supervision. They were given a huge file to submit and that particular file had all the tick boxes of generally how schools should be run.

“At the moment, government is not registering online schools. Also Umalusi is not accrediting online schools, hence the new policy that is currently sitting with them for final approval. SACAI has taken upon itself to formalise this sector.”

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Maseko explained that the assessment body decided to intervene when everything started “going downhill” with SEAT Academy in 2022.

“We indicated to them that SACAI would make sure that those learners who were registered would write their examinations. We also said we would make sure their exams papers are marked, moderated and captured by SACAI, thus, meaning learners were not denied to write their exams. SACAI completed the marking in December.”

‘Horror show’

He said SEAT did not pay SACAI for last year’s academic year.

“We haven’t seen a single cent, but we kept it confidential because we didn’t want parents and learners to panic. We wanted them to write their exams without knowing about SEAT Academy not paying SACAI.

“In 2021, everything went smoothly, but come 2022 something happened in the middle of the year after the June exams until October. Those four months were a horror show when we heard from parents that SEAT Academy is not paying tutors.

“We were now sitting with parents and learners asking where are their portfolio marks. SEAT Academy were scrabbling in November and December trying to get other people to mark these learners’ portfolios while SACAI was waiting because we had done our part.”

Assessments resubmitted and remarked

Maseko confirmed that assessments would need to be resubmitted.

“We have given parents two options that they can look for another service provider because they can still reattempt to do their year project in the proposed two months and resubmit them. For those that have done their projects, we said to SEAT Academy that parents must submit what they can [immediately] so we can get them graded for certain learners who are going to university.

“The parents’ concerns have been taken into account. For the learners who have received their full marks, they still have an option for a remark if they are not happy with the results or we would advocate for them to rewrite in the mid-June exams for subjects.”

He added that SACAI had scheduled a meeting with the school’s parents.

“We, as SACAI, will try to take as much responsibility as possible to support the parents. Traditionally, assessment bodies never reach out to parents because we communicate through the school just like DBE [Department of Basic Education]. We are not fly-by night, we are here to help.”

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