D-DAY NEARS FOR MATRICS ‘It is pleasing to see that there is a steady upward trend in the marks of subjects such as Mathematics, Mathematical Literacy, Physical Science and Life Science.’
THE LONG wait for the Province’s thousands of matriculants is almost over, with Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, set to announce the 2017 National Senior Certificate Examination Results tomorrow.
A full list of all the Northern Cape results will be published in Friday’s DFA while candidates will also be able to obtain their results at the school or exam centre where they wrote their examination on Friday.
Students at St Patrick’s Christian Brothers’ College in Kimberley, who wrote the Independent Examinations Board (IEB) matric examinations, as well as those at Curro Private School in Kathu and Hoerskool Oliphantshoek Akademie vir CVO, receive their results today.
Umalusi, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, has meanwhile reported that the 2017 National Senior Certificate examinations were “largely incident-free with a few minor disruptions experienced in some parts of the country”.
“This attests to the success of the rigid measures put in place by DBE to ensure fool-proof and incident-free examinations. Umalusi commends the Department of Basic Education and Provincial Departments of Education for working tirelessly to achieve this goal,” said Umalusi in a statement issued earlier this week.
The body conducts not only the process of standardisation, which is required for national examinations, but it also, through rigorous procedures, assures the quality and integrity of the entire examination process.
“Having studied all the evidence presented and having noted that there were no systemic irregularities reported that might have compromised the credibility and integrity of the November 2017 NSC examinations administered by the Department of Basic Education, the Executive Committee of Council approves the release of the DBE results for the November 2017 NSC examinations,” Umalusi stated.
The approval came with the provision that the results of candidates implicated in examination irregularities be blocked and be investigated and that the department report the outcome of the investigations to Umalusi.
The Class of 2017 was the fourth Grade 12 cohort to write final examinations under the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) and, according to Umalusi, the learner performance of the cohort of 2017 has moved closer to the average historical performance profile.
“It is pleasing to see that there is a steady upward trend in the marks of subjects such as Mathematics, Mathematical Literacy, Physical Science and Life Science.
“However, some of the subjects that do not fall under the category of gateway subjects such as Visual Arts, Dramatic Arts and Agricultural Science need to be given more attention and be afforded the status that they deserve in terms of providing them with the necessary resources, for example, Learning and Teaching Support Material,” said the body.
There were 104 001(16%) progressed learners in the Class of 2017, which is slightly down from the 108 742 of 2016.
While the class of 2017 is the 10th cohort of learners to sit for the NSC, it is only the fourth cohort to write the CAPS aligned NSC examination.
Umalusi said there was a marked improvement in the overall quality of question papers across the assessment bodies as more papers were approved after first or second submission to external moderators.
More than 800 000 learners throughout the country wrote the Department of Basic Education’s NSC examinations, in 58 subjects. Of these, the raw marks for 38 subjects were accepted by Umalusi, which 16 subject marks were adjusted upwards and four were adjusted downwards.
Meanwhile the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) in Gauteng has threatened to petrol-bomb the offices of newspapers that publish successful matriculants this year.
Cosas in the Northern Cape could not be contacted for comment.
Cosas has claimed that the public release of the student numbers of Grade 12 learners who have passed was a “suicidal act” and the congress has reiterated its condemnation of the public release of results.
In a strongly worded statement attributed to Cosas Gauteng provincial chairperson Wandile Mofokeng and provincial secretary Sibusiso Sithole, Cosas asserted that the public release of results in newspapers adversely affected learners’ confidence.
“Since the dawn of this suicidal act (public release of results), the future of this country was under threat. Students continually lose confidence in themselves, particularly if they did not appear in these papers. Most of the times there are errors done by these papers that can cost someone’s life,” the organisation contended.
“We are going to prepare our petrol bombs and burn these papers that cause a lot of depression and suicide to our constituency,” the body warned.
“We also advise students to go fetch their academic statements at their schools, as this is the only reliable paper we can trust. Students must not waste their time waking up very early for newspapers that are suicidal,” it added.