Pretoria - South African political parties have warned matric pupils against believing a letter which requests them to rewrite the second Mathematics paper due to the exam script having been distributed prematurely.
A letter which appears on a Department of Basic Education’s letterhead has been widely circulated and says the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Mathematics Paper 2 was distributed prematurely and that those candidates would need to re-write the subject on Monday 30th November 2015.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) Study Group on Basic Education said on Thursday it was regrettable the fake notice, “purporting to be an official memo of the Department of Basic Education” was doing the rounds as the paper in question had already been written without incident on November 2 .
Nomalungelo Gina, spokesperson for the ANC study group, said: “We would like to urge our matriculants and the public at large to ignore the circulated notice and continue with their examinations as scheduled because it is fake and it has not been issued by the Department of Basic Education.”
Gina said when she discovered the letter, she “immediately contacted the department to establish the authenticity of the notice and why it would have been issued”.
The department confirmed the letter was fake and Gina said members of the public and educators had been alerted accordingly.
“There’s been no report of any compromise to the Maths paper written last Monday.”
Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schäfer said her department had also checked with the national department following the emergence of the letter.
“It is most unfortunate that some selfish individuals engage in destructive behaviour such as this which only serves to unnecessarily increase the stress surrounding these exams, and cause questions around the integrity of the examinations.
“I understand that the distribution of the letter has been cause for alarm amongst our NSC candidates. I wish to assure you that the letter is a fake and I encourage you to remain focused for the last couple of weeks of the NSC.”
Gina said the ANC would call on the national department to “conduct a full investigation of the source of this fake circular and whoever is responsible must face the full might of the law because such an act has potential of denting the credibility of the national senior certificate examination and cause unnecessary panic among our learners”.
“Those responsible will be dealt with harshly as soon as they are uncovered,” she said.
African News Agency
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