Durban - The long wait for KwaZulu-Natal’s 170 000 matric pupils is almost over, but education authorities are at odds over the results of those schools implicated in cheating.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announces the overall national and provincial results on Monday evening.
In a televised broadcast at 6pm, she is expected to name the country’s top performing pupils and present the matric pass rate for the class of 2014.
KwaZulu-Natal recorded a 78.2 percent pass in 2013, and the head of education in the province, Dr Nkosinathi Sishi, has expressed hope that the results will improve.
The national pass rate climbed from 60.6 percent in 2009, to 73.9 percent in 2012,and to 78.2 percent in 2013.
But according to one report at the weekend, the class of 2014 should expect a drop.
Professor John Volmink, the chairman of the council of standards body, Umalusi, told City Press he expected the pass rate to drop between 3 percent and 5 percent.
He put this down to an increase in the failure rate for maths literacy; a drop in the pass rate for mathematics and physical science; and a drop in home language pass rates, including English.
As 688 660 pupils throughout the country await their results at 6am on Tuesday, education officials differed on the extent and severity of the cheating, and whether results would be released at the 69 affected schools.
On Tuesday, Umalusi said all results at all implicated exam centres would be withheld until its probe was completed.
On Thursday, the KZN Department of Education said only the results of those suspected of cheating would be withheld. It, and the national education department, also sought to downplay the scale of the cheating.
Now the national Department of Education has sided with Umalusi, saying results at all suspected schools would be withheld for the time being.
National education department spokesman, Elijah Mhlanga, said they would not release the results for any of the tainted schools until the investigations had been completed.
But he told the Daily News’s sister paper, Isolezwe, the department would try to expedite the investigation as it was anxious not to prejudice innocent pupils.
Thirty-nine examination centres in KZN were implicated, and 19 in the Eastern Cape.
Others have since emerged: six centres in Gauteng, two in Mpumalanga, and one each in Western Cape, North West and Northern Cape.
Umalusi and national and provincial education officials are investigating allegations of “group copying”, where pupils had the same right and wrong answers on their scripts.
Some of the scripts were also written in different hands.
Umalusi’s chief executive, Mafu Rakometsi, promised “drastic measures” against all - scholars and supervisors - found to be involved in cheating.
The Daily News reported last week that Muzi Mahlambi, spokesman for KZN’s education department, had said some of the 39 had already been cleared and their results would be released.
But Umalusi denied this on Sunday.
Asked to respond to Umalusi’s insistence that all results at the affected schools would be withheld, Mahlambi said: “We do not want to debate with Umalusi publicly. We are aware of the meeting (with the department) and the matter will be discussed there.”
Umalusi spokesman, Lucky Ditaunyane, said candidates who felt strongly that they were not involved in the “group copying” would have to apply for a hearing through the provincial education department and their scripts would be retrieved before a panel.
He said pupils who were not affected could not be punished for the actions of their peers.
Mahlambi also said once the results had been released, opportunities for remarking and rewriting would be available.
The deadline for the remarking of scripts was January 21 and applications to write supplementary exams would close on January 26, with exams commencing on February 17.
The names of pupils will not be published in newspapers for the first time, but pupils will be able to track their results using their unique exam numbers and the names of the schools.
The Daily News will carry the results in a special supplement on Tuesday.
Mahlambi, said the pupils could also obtain their results from their schools on Tuesday morning.
Daily News and Sapa