Pretoria - Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, said she was pleased to be able to announce the 2009 matric results for all nine provinces today, including Mpumalanga.
Umalusi, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, on Monday announced that it had decided to delay the approval of the release of the results for Mpumalanga.
This was to give them more time to complete rigorous checking of the province's examination results.
The council had been unable to verify the credibility of the results for Mpumalanga because of the exam leaks which took place in October. The Mathematics exam Paper 1 and 2, Physical Science Papers 1 and 2 and Accounting were leaked and subsequently recalled and replaced countrywide.
The minister held a series of meetings with Umalusi in a bid to sort out the delay.
On Thursday, Motshekga explained that she was able to release the province's results after Umalusi Chairperson, Professor John Volmink, informed her last night that following a rigorous process, the council found no evidence of a systemic problem in Mpumalanga.
The council was therefore satisfied that the Mpumalanga results were credible and that they could thus be released by the department along with the rest of the provinces.
She said that while she was pleased to be able to announce the provinces results, steps were to be taken to improve exam processes there.
"I met with the Premier of Mpumalanga and the MEC for Education on Monday. We agreed that there is a need to defend the integrity and standing of the examination process in Mpumalanga and that the examination structures in the Mpumalanga Education Department will immediately be re-constituted."
They further agree that the national department would from 2010 assume responsibility for the administration of the National Senior Certificate examination process in Mpumalanga until the necessary systems were in place in the province.
The minister has further requested the HAWKS, to get involved in the investigation of the reported irregularities to get to the root cause of the problem in Mpumalanga once and for all.
"Those found guilty of stealing and selling question papers are criminals and will be punished to the full extent of the law," she added.
Mpumalanga registered the poorest performance with a pass rate of 47.9 percent, a decline of 3.9 percent.
