Barbara Maregele and Sapa
CAPE Town playwright Lara Foot, whose play is at the centre of the controversial matric exam question about the rape of an infant, has condemned the exam question as inappropriate – and appalling.
The matric question in a drama paper on Monday elicited a heated response from parents, teachers and activists.
Drama pupils were given an unseen extract from the play Tshepang in a compulsory section of the dramatic arts exam. The extract in the paper included stage directions that read: “He (a character named Simon) acts out the rape, using the broomstick and the loaf of bread.”
The pupils were asked to describe how they would get the actor portraying Simon to perform this, to “maximise the horror of the rape for the audience”.
The play was inspired by the brutal rape of a nine-month-old infant, known as “Baby Tshepang” in Upington in 2001.
Foot, who is head of the Baxter Theatre, said yesterday while the play had been studied by many pupils, the question raised many artistic and ethical issues. Foot, in a statement yesterday, said the last contact she had with the Basic Education Department was six years ago when they asked to use Tshepang as a setwork.
“If the question was set as an unseen extract from the work, or if the play has not been studied or seen by the pupils, then that question is totally inappropriate and frankly
appalling. Even if the play has been studied by the pupils, the question is unsuitable and entirely problematic in that it appears to miss the stylistic choices of my play,” she said.
The question could suggest that those who set the paper had misinterpreted the play.
“We have performed Tshepang to 14 000 pupils over the past 10 years with very successful and rewarding question and answer sessions afterwards. I have received hundreds of letters from pupils and teachers thanking me for this insightful work. I hope that this incident does not lead to pupils being robbed of the chance to study the play,” she said.
In a statement, the Basic Education Department said sample scripts would be marked from all the provinces.
“This is to establish any possible disadvantage to the candidates. “If there is evidence that candidates have been affected by this question, the question will be excluded from the question paper and the marking guidelines will be adjusted accordingly.”
The purpose of the question was to assess pupils’ understanding of the concept of “action metaphor”.
“The horror and aversion the audience feels is achieved without resorting to an actual rape... Nowhere is it expected of the candidate to have to literally describe the actual act of raping a nine-month-old baby.”
The department said the question was “well within the prescripts of the curriculum”.
However, it acknowledged that exam questions should not invoke “negative or adverse feelings or emotions in candidates”, and if enough pupils refused to answer the question it would be discounted from the marking.
Umalusi, the external quality assurance council that approved the exam, said dramatic arts was a subject that aimed to equip pupils by freeing their minds of bigotry and prejudice. “That some pupils… were offended by the question means the outcomes of the subject were not achieved,” spokesman Lucky Ditaunyane said.
Given South Africa’s rape statistics, it was almost certain that some of the pupils would have been victims of sexual assault, said Rachel Jewkes, a gender and health researcher at the SA Medical Research Council. “I find it inconceivable how anybody could think that was appropriate.”
She also criticised the use in an exam of the real-life trauma of a victim who would now be a 13-year-old pupil. “Although Tshepang is a made-up name, the way it’s set as a national question I just find completely abhorrent,” Jewkes said.