Clamping down on matric offences

THE provincial Education Department had put stringent measures in place to clamp down on matric examination malpractices, MEC Mthandeni Dlungwane said yesterday.

He was addressing various stakeholders in the education sector, including matric pupils, at the Umlazi Commercial Technical High School, during the launch of the 50-day countdown to the start of the year-end examinations themed “The Final Push Programme”.

He said his department would “leave no stone unturned” in its fight to prevent a litany of examination transgressions, including group copying, which he said had plagued the department for numerous years.

There were 171 808 full-time matric pupils registered to write the NSC examinations across the province, 1 983 more than those registered to sit last year’s end-of-year assessments. Of those, 92 221 were female pupils, with 79 584 males.

Dlungwane said the largest increase in registered pupils was in Pinetown, where there were 863 more candidates than last year. The pupil registration finished at the end of March.

Regarding the training of invigilators and monitoring this year, the MEC said the province planned on using a two-level cascade model.

He added that they had trained district core teams on perfecting invigilation and monitoring strategies, and that these teams would subsequently train invigilators and monitors.

To further ensure tight security around exam papers, Dlungwane disclosed that the printing of the evaluation papers would be done in accordance with the sequence of subjects or papers in the examination timetable.

Marking centres are set to open on December 1, with marking commencing four days later and scheduled for completion on December 15. The centres will be officially closed on December 18.

He said statements of results would be printed between January 1 and 3 next year and sent to districts the next day.