Education
What steps has her Department taken to ensure that the matric examinations will be credible and that the examinations papers will be kept safe?
THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION
8. The WCED must comply with the national regulations on the Conduct, Administration and Management of the NSC examinations.
These regulations provide the minimum norms and standards that must be followed from the time the question papers are received from the DBE until they are printed, packed and distributed to schools for the writing of the examinations.
All question papers are printed, packed and stored in a secure area with security cameras and recordings of the activities in these areas.
All officials working in these areas sign a confidentiality and secrecy agreement.
All school principals have been trained on how to conduct the examinations, how to handle any irregularities and how to manage the examinations from start to finish.
The WCED has also embarked on the use of the Smart Locking Logic (SLL) System for the safe-keeping of question papers in four districts in 2017. The other four districts will start to use this system in 2018.
With the SLL system, schools can only open the bags that contain the question papers one hour before the commencement of the examinations.
The writing of the examinations is monitored across all districts by officials from Head Office and districts. In addition, both the Department of Basic Education and UMALUSI also sends monitors to a selection of schools. All the visits are unannounced.
The WCED is confident that all the necessary measures have been implemented to run a credible examination.
