Grade 12 pupils sitting for their final-year examinations face an uphill battle as they grapple with rolling blackouts, inclement weather and service delivery protests, which have prevented some of them from writing.   

This is according to officials from the Department of Basic Education (DBE) who, during an urgent technical briefing to the media on Sunday, characterised protests as the biggest threat to the examinations.

The officials made an impassioned plea to communities, civil society and other stakeholders not to prevent any of the more than 900,000 learners from getting to examination centres as they had endured enough trauma.

“We therefore truly appeal to members of the community to allow the examinations to proceed. The repercussions for not doing so are devastating to learners and the communities themselves as it is the children of the same communities that suffer the consequences,” said the director-general of the DBE, Mathanzima Mweli.

Matric exams started on 31 October and over the past week there have been numerous disruptions. In Etwatwa, Gauteng, 53 pupils could not write the exams as gunshots were fired in the area. In Vosloorus, there were service delivery protests, while in Impendle, KwaZulu-Natal, police had to escort pupils because of protests. There were also disruptions in parts of the Northern Cape, where writing eventually took place.

“In the case where learners are not able to write the examination, it means that they will rewrite the missed papers only in May/June next year. That is not fair on the learners who have already endured a lot as a result of Covid-19, among other challenges,” said Mweli.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Rolling blackouts a big worry as matrics set to write final examinations”

The briefing was held after the department and its stakeholders, including teachers’ unions, professional bodies and school governing body associations, met on Saturday to deliberate on factors reported to be posing a threat to the administration of the examinations.

The department announced it was aware of cases of pupils bringing crib notes and cellphones into examination centres, pupils being denied their right to sit for the exams because they are pregnant and some denied their right to write due to outstanding fees, a move which the department condemned and vowed to act against.

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Ordinarily, when pupils miss their exams they are only allowed to rewrite the following year, but Mweli said in the case of the 53 pupils who could not write because of gunshots in the area, the department was looking at having them write a “reserve” paper.

It is unclear if pupils who missed their papers due to protests will be allowed to rewrite the papers.

On the pupils who were not allowed to write by their principals due to outstanding fees and pregnancies, Mweli said the department took full responsibility. “We are to blame for the principals who have caused this,” he said, adding they would deal with the incidents on a case-by-case basis.

Dr Rufus Poliah, the department’s head of assessments, said one of their biggest concerns when pupils sat for their first information technology paper was rolling blackouts, as the subject requires the use of electricity and computers.  

Poliah revealed that 119 centres were affected by rolling blackouts, but pupils were compensated for lost time. A total of 3,956 pupils were affected, 14 of whom will need to rewrite the paper.

Despite myriad issues, Mweli said the first week of exams had gone “exceptionally well; the incidents reported here are deemed to be normal”. DM