Durban - Formal hearings into the KwaZulu-Natal matric cheating scandals would only begin next month, Isaac Luthuli, spokesman for Education MEC, Peggy Nkonyeni, said on Sunday.
He said letters informing those implicated had been sent.
Exam watchdog, uMalusi, initially said 39 schools had been red-flagged for “group copying” last year, but that 11 had been cleared.
Recently, the Department of Basic Education made an offer to teachers, saying if they came clean they would be given lighter penalties or amnesty, and their pupils would be able to rewrite.
The DA’s education spokeswoman, Annette Lovemore, opposed this, saying that disciplinary action should be taken against the teachers. She said what teachers had done constituted fraud.
Affected pupils had not received their results although they were allowed to write supplementary exams if they were cleared. The affected subjects were physical science, maths, accounting, English first language, history, life science and geography.
If found guilty, the cheats could face a three-year ban from writing matric.
Sadtu’s KZN deputy secretary, Nomarashiya Caluza, said the investigation had been flawed. “We feel that there is a political hand in the process,” Caluza said.
She also felt uMalusi had not followed proper procedure, but would not say why.
Elijah Mhlanga, of the Department of Basic Education, said it was not possible to conduct the hearings earlier because some of those implicated had been writing supplementary exams, which concluded on March 24.
“When that was finished, we had to commence with the process of sending out letters to notify the implicated persons. It’s for that reason we say mid-April,” Mhlanga said.
Daily News