Final countdown for matric exams begins

Monday, October 19, 2009

Pretoria - The final countdown has begun with only a week left before this year's matriculants begin writing their final exams.

More than half a million registered candidates will sit for the finals which kick off on 26 October and end on 4 December 2009.

Most provincial education departments have said they are more than prepared for the good results from the second group of matriculants to write exams based on the National Curriculum Statement.

Minister for Basic Education, Angie Motshekga last month told the National Assembly that the department was ready and confident that the 2009 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination will be successfully administered.

She said that clear plans have been put in place to ensure that all candidates received their results timeously noting that the problem of not releasing the results of all the candidates on the scheduled release date in 2008, emanated from the new emphasis being placed on school based assessment (SBA) by the department.

Improved control systems were put in place to ensure that candidates are not resulted if the SBA is outstanding, a process that was not in place in previous years, Motshekga said.

This year all provincial education departments have established quarterly monitoring systems to ensure that schools are assessing their learners on a continuous basis and defaulting schools are identified and remedial measures initiated.

Motshekga said the computer system that was implemented for the first time for the 2008 examinations had successfully processed the 2009 supplementary examination results.

It was being further enhanced and improved to ensure that there are no glitches in the 2009 NSC examinations.

The 2009 matric results will be released on 7 January 2010 to allow more time to verify and check all results before they are released.