Exam quality assurer Umalusi has given the department of basic education the green light to release the matric results after the body said it had not found any irregularities.
Exam quality assurer Umalusi has given the department of basic education the green light to release the matric results after the body said it had not found any irregularities.
“Umalusi is extremely pleased that there were no detected cases of paper leakages or other irregularities that could have compromised the overall credibility and integrity of the examinations,” Umalusi council chairperson Yunus Ballim said during a media briefing on the 2024 end-of-year national exams for grade 12 learners.
A total of 1 060 852 candidates participated in the 2024 exams. Of that number, the national senior certificate (NSC) accounted for 832 993 candidates (78.5%), distributed across the basic education department, Independent Examinations Board and the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute.
The remaining 227 859 (21.5%) candidates are distributed across three qualifications: 138 000 wrote the National Certificate Vocation exams; 49 421 the National Accredited Technical Education Diploma (N2-N3) exams and 40 438 the general education and training certificate: adult basic education and training exams.
The exams were written at 9 566 centres.
But Umalusi remained “seriously concerned” that KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga once again topped the list for learners cheating, with 195 and 74 candidates implicated respectively.
The national senior certificate has seen a reduction in the number of reported cases of group copying — from 945 in 2023 to 407 in 2024 — and 365 N2-N3 candidates in the private college sector are reported to have been involved in cheating.
The assurer also raised concerns about the year-on-year increase in the number of marking concessions — questions found to be “problematic” or poorly written by the department of basic education.
“What is problematic about this practice is that it has the likelihood of negatively affecting the overall standard of the question papers concerned,” Ballim said.
Umalusi received marking concessions in 19 subjects in 2024, compared with 17 in 2023 which were flagged by the department of higher education and training.
In addition, it received a report from the basic education department indicating that 30 candidates who had not passed grade 11 were registered for the grade 12 exams.
“This is highly irregular. Whereas this is only one case, it is one too many. Umalusi is satisfied with the action taken to withdraw the registration status of the school concerned,” Ballim said.
The quality assurer said it found that 128 private colleges had administered the N2-N3 exams, despite not being accredited by Umalusi. The higher education and training department has been tasked with investigating the matter.
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube is expected to release the full results on Monday evening.
