By Ilse Fredericks

Matric candidates' raw scores in maths have been adjusted upwards, but not higher than the maximum allowed adjustment of 10 percent, according to Professor John Volmink, chairman of the Umalusi council.

Some candidates complained at the time they wrote maths paper one that it was too challenging.

Raw scores were accepted for 41 of the 57 subjects standardised by Umalusi, the body responsible for exam quality assurance and the standardisation of results.

Raw scores for 16 subjects, including maths, physical science and some languages, were adjusted upwards or downwards.

Volmink said none of the adjustments made that exceeded 10 percent and in most cases the adjustments were relatively minor.

Volmink said in 2008 raw scores were accepted for 31 subjects.

He said before adjustments were made Umalusi would look at previous years' results and, for example, compare what the average and number of distinctions were in previous years.

"We have a norm for subjects such as maths and if necessary we adjust towards the norm."

Professor Nan Yeld, dean of the Centre for Higher Education Development at UCT, said standardisation took place when there was reason to believe that candidates' performance had been unfairly influenced in the exam process, but this was only done when essential.

"However, standardisation can mask or hide real levels of achievement."

"For higher education and employers, for example, it makes things very difficult, as the marks do not reveal what candidates actually know and can do."

She said another danger was the temptation for politicians to exert pressure to raise results, and for bureaucrats to give in to this.

Elspeth Khembo, president of the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (Amesa), said the association had submitted a question-by-question analysis of both maths papers to the Department of Basic Education.

"We... found that paper one had many high-order questions."

She said Amesa accepted the adjustments to the maths scores.

Aarnout Brombacher, of Brombacher and Associates, which is involved in maths development and teacher training, said an adjustment had been necessary. Many candidates would have found maths paper one difficult, he said.

"Setting an exam paper is not an engineering task. It is set in good faith and believing that there will be questions that are hard and questions that are easy. It doesn't always go as expected and when this happens, adjustments need to be made."

Brombacher, who served on a panel appointed by former education minister Naledi Pandor to investigate the standard of the 2008 exam papers, said it was the second year in a row that there had not been enough accessible questions in the paper.

Dr Jonathan Clark, director of the Schools Development Unit in the School of Education at UCT, said he would be interested to see how matriculants performed in mathematics given the furore over the standard of the papers.

"Everyone agreed that the first paper in particular was very challenging, and I'm sure that this will negatively impact on the mathematics results," he said.

"I would also be quite surprised if the overall provincial results improved from last year, and I expect that performance in mathematics and physical science in particular will show a downward trend, certainly in township schools."

A full list of Western Cape results will be published in Friday's Cape Argus.