Umalusi, South Africa’s trusted Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, gave its go-ahead for the release of the 2022 matric final results just two days before they were set to be announced.
Although this comes as good news for the class of 2022, there have, unfortunately, been reports of cheating found among a handful of exams.
The cheating has been identified as having likely been conducted through the passing of crib notes and the sharing of answers via Whatsapp groups and other social media. It has further been determined that imposters were found in examination rooms, whilst different sets of handwritings were found on answer sheets.
The cheating claims have also featured the mention of invigilators and learners working in collaboration with one another. It has been alleged that certain invigilators in Mpumalanga schools might have received compensation for giving learners answers to examination questions.
These instances of cheating are, however, being heavily investigated at present. It has been suggested that those learners who have been caught out for cheating, will likely have their results blocked, as they await further action following the investigation.
Still though, these instances of cheating are said to have had no bearing on the overall integrity of the results. Thus, the possibility that these irregularities could be a systematic issue has been ruled out.
Resultantly, it has been concluded that the examinations were administered largely in accordance with Umalusi’s required regulations. Nonetheless, beyond the cheating, there were also a few other issues to be found on the administrative side.
For instance, Umalusi also expressed concerns about problematic questions that were either unclear, poorly worded or incorrectly posed to learners.
However, in such cases, marking concessions were made such that the paper would be marked out of less, but would still be adjusted to an overall mark that equaled the original total.
Therefore, according to Umalusi it seems that apart from a few issues, the overall 2022 matric examination season proceeded within the appropriate margins of regulation.
Learners can therefore expect national results to be announced on the 19th of January 2023, whilst individual statements of results will be released the following day, on the 20th.
