KZN taking steps to stop exam leaks

KWAZULU-Natal Education Department spokesman Muzi Mahlambi says the department has taken several steps to prevent matric exam paper leaks, as has happened in Limpopo this week.

All education officials in the province involved with exams have been specifically trained to be alert to irregularities.

The department “crafted a guide called the Invigilators’ Handbook, which helps them to operate in a credible manner, and a Monitors’ Handbook, which guides them on issues of common examination malpractices and how to avoid them,” Mahlambi said.

He said a letter had been issued to each matric pupil, in English and Zulu, warning of the consequences of cheating.

While the department could not claim that its measures were foolproof, it was constantly trying to close all the possible gaps, he said.

At the start of the matric exams last month, KZN Education MEC Peggy Nkonyeni said she was confident that there would not be a recurrence of the mass cheating scandal of last year.

Of the 22 KZN schools implicated in last year’s cheating, hearings had been concluded at 11, and 744 pupils who had confessed to exam irregularities were now rewriting some of their matric subjects.

Speaking on exam security measures, the KZN Education Department’s head of exams, Barney Mthembu, had said they had gone as far as changing the type of glue used to seal the packets that held exam question papers. The glue cracked when heat was applied to it, and it would not reseal.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga revealed on Tuesday that two pupils at a Limpopo school had access to an electronic copy of the life sciences paper two before the exam on Monday.

This was in spite of 26 of her officials being sent to Limpopo to monitor the exam process.

A task team will now probe the leak, find out if it spread beyond the two pupils at the one school, and make recommendations on the credibility of exams in the district.