Last week, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) met with Eskom's leadership to deliberate on the challenges faced by grade 12 students caused by load shedding.
The grade 12 class of 2021 started their final examinations in October. However, due to a number of challenges, South Africa’s power utility, Eskom also started the process of load shedding.
Load shedding meant that matriculants have had to deal with power cuts while trying to prepare for their examinations. The DBE felt this was having a negative impact on matriculants and causing stress. Load shedding is also contributing to congestion on the roads as traffic lights are not working.
This prompted the department to call for a meeting with Eskom’s leadership to try and remedy the issue. The DBE says they have tabled a number of proposals for Eskom to consider.
- One proposal suggests that load shedding must be avoided when the South African Sign Language (SASL HL) is written on 23 and 30 November. This is because the examination requires laptops and other assistive devices.
- Eskom to suspend load shedding every evening from Sunday to Thursday between the hours of 19h00 and 23h00.
- Suspend load shedding across the 194 marking centres. Marking of matric examinations starts on 8 December 2021 and is expected to end on 22 December 2021.
- Suspend load shedding across 37 capture centres from 11 December 2021 to 27 December 2021.
Eskom says they will consider the proposals made to them by the DBE. They added that a team would be assembled to see how these measures could be implemented.
