All systems go for this year’s matric
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that the department was ready to administer the matric exams.
|||Pretoria- Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga on Friday announced that the department was ready to administer the matric exams, which are expected to start in 36 days.
Speaking at a media briefing in Pretoria, Motshekga said preparations were on track to ensure the smooth administration of the national senior certificate.
A huge number of 801 688 pupils were registered to write the exams, with 674 232 of them being full-time candidates.
Ten million question papers have already been printed and were ready to be distributed to almost 7 000 examination centres, said Motshekga.
She said there would be 65 000 invigilators and 35 000 markers at 118 marking centres around the country.
Exam markers have been appointed and all processes were going ahead as planned, Motshekga said.
There had been an increase in the number of pupils writing exams this year and that was remarkable, she said.
“The provinces indicated that plans were well under way in order to effectively administer this year’s exams,” she said.
On the other hand, Motshekga said the Annual National Assessment (ANA) exams would be written in December after all.
Last week, it was announced that ANA would be postponed until February after teacher unions complained about the readiness of pupils to sit for the exams.
According to Motshekga, the MECs in all provinces have “expressed confidence that their schools were ready to admin- ister ANA and that the postponement to next year would negatively affect them”.
ANA tests the numeracy and literacy skills of pupils.
Motshekga said: “It was discussed that ANA is used as a helpful diagnostic tool and often reflects on the inefficiencies and effective teaching.”
Unions had repeatedly raised concerns about ANA, saying it was time-consuming and left teachers with little time to teach.
Motshekga said the unions’ concerns were legitimate, adding there had been an agreement to review the frequency of ANA in a systematic and academic manner.
On language policy, Motshekga said 3 558 out of 24 000 schools across the country which used to offer English and Afrikaans would be mandated to introduce an African language from Grade 1, starting from next year.
She expressed concern about the “misconception” regarding the introduction of Mandarin in schools, which want to offer the subject.
“This forms part of a country-to-country agreement like those we have with other countries,” she said.
Mandarin was one of the 15 additional foreign languages, which were optional and offered in some schools, she said.
*Recently the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) made threats to adopt an eye-for-an-eye approach to teachers likely to use corporal punishment against pupils.
Motshekga expressed concern about Cosas’ stance, saying it was identified that more needed to be done to address all forms of violence in schools.
Unions and the department had proposed a lekgotla to find ways for dealing with violence in our schools and young schoolchildren involved in violence, said Motshekga.
rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za
Pretoria News
