The Council of Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, Umalusi, has given the green light for the writing of the 2022 end-of-the year examinations.
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) currently has 923 460 learners enrolled for the National Senior Certificate exams. This number comprises full-time and part-time scholars.
At the media briefing on Friday, Umalusi said it has completed its role of monitoring and verifying the readiness of both public and private assessment bodies to manage and conduct the 2022 end of the year national examinations.
The assessment bodies are the DBE, Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), Independent Examinations Board (IEB) and the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI).
Umalsi said as part of its quality assurance mandate, it was required to assess the levels of readiness of the bodies to conduct, administer and manage the exams before they start. The council uses a framework that focuses on a number of areas, including:
- Management of exams,
- Registration of candidates,
- Registration of exam centres,
- Printing, packaging and distribution of question papers.
The council said all assessment bodies have successfully completed registration of candidates. It said the DBE has 923,460 candidates registered (up from 897,786 in 2021), the IEB has 13,567 and SACAI 4,951 candidates.
The DBE candidates will sit for the exams at 6,885 centres across the country. Marketing will be conducted by 53,926 markers at 186 centres (compared to 41,596 markers at 193 centres in 2021).
IEB candidates will write the exams at 232 centres for full-time candidates and at six for part-time candidates. These numbers include 15 new IEB schools.
SACAI candidates will write the exams at 85 centres.
Umalusi CEO Dr Mafu Rakometsi warned leaners and teachers to refrain from cheating, including group copying, where teachers have been implicated at times.
“We condemn this criminal practice. Cheating compromises the integrity of our national examination system, which we are mandated to jealously protect as a quality council,” he said.
Umalusi discouraged communities from using national exams as leverage for their protest action, he added.
“This is unacceptable as it jeopardises the future of our children.”
Source: Times Live, SA News, Business Tech, Jacaranda FM, image from Twitter: @ECR_Newswatch
