Pretoria - The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has launched a full investigation into the examinations for adult candidates in KwaZulu-Natal.
This was prompted by the discovery of irregularities, which were detected jointly by the DBE and KwaZulu-Natal Education Department and confirmed by the Quality Assurance Council, Umalusi.
The Senior Certificate (SC) examination, commonly referred to as the “Old Matric,” has been offered to adult candidates since 2008, when the National Senior Certificate (NSC) -- based on the National Curriculum Statement -- was introduced.
It is an examination specifically designed to accommodate adult learners who left school without completing their matric. This implies they either had partial credits to Matric or no credits at all.
The intention of the DBE was to terminate this examination in 2011 but due to learner demand, this examination was extended to 2014.
At the start of the exams on 5 May 2014, reports were received from the province highlighting incidents of irregularities.
These referred, in the main, to support being given to candidates during the writing of the examination.
In response to these reports, the Provincial Education Department (PED), together with the DBE, deployed additional officials to reinforce monitoring at these exam centres.
In a number of cases, provincial officials took over the management of the examinations at centres where there were indications of any malpractice, and in other cases, resident monitors were deployed to these examination centres.
In response to these initiatives there was a substantial decrease in the reports of irregularities from the province.
However, it would appear that the actions of the DBE and the PED were not adequate to eradicate this practice completely.
During its centralised moderation of a sample of the 2014 SC examination scripts from the KZN province, Umalusi identified similar responses in the answer scripts, which warranted further investigations.
The DBE immediately started a full investigation on 21 July 2014, headed by the Chief Director for Examinations, together with a team of 32 examiners to conduct an audit of the scripts from centres where there was some suspicion of irregularity.
“The purpose of this audit was to establish the nature and extent of the examination irregularities, the centres, subjects and candidates that were implicated in the irregularity in KZN. The investigation also included an interview with the chief markers that were responsible for the marking of the examination scripts.
“The investigative audit of the answer scripts was conducted in 95 centres that were purposively sampled from the 365 centres registered for the SC examination in KZN,” Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said.
Evidence of cheating
Mhlanga said based on the evidence obtained, the DBE concluded that there has been orchestrated support provided to candidates at certain centres in the province during the writing of the 2014 Senior Certificate examination.
“This emanates from collusion between the chief invigilators, invigilators and candidates at certain centres.
“This practice is fairly widespread across the province, given that the irregularities were identified in centres across nine of the 12 districts, but not across every examination centre.
“Of the 95 examination centres that were subjected to the investigative audit, 49 were found to have engaged in one type of irregularity or the other, and 46 were cleared,” Mhlanga said.
A full report was presented to Umalusi, which is responsible for the final approval of the results.
Umalusi, in conjunction with the DBE has decided to hold back the results of KwaZulu-Natal, so as to conduct a more thorough investigation of every examination in the province.
This will also ensure that candidates and centres, which were not implicated in this irregular practice, are cleared and have their results released. Those that are implicated will be dealt with in terms of the regulations governing the SC examinations.
“The DBE can confidently say that this practice is confined to one province and Umalusi has cleared the other eight provinces and their results will be released on 13 August 2014,” Mhlanga said.
“The commitment of the department is to the candidates who are innocent and have not been engaged in any of these malpractices.
“These candidates will be cleared over the next few weeks and their results will be made available in the shortest time possible. The DBE apologises to these candidates for the inconvenience caused and under these circumstances it is of paramount importance that examination credibility is not compromised,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
