Cape Town - Thousands of completed Annual National Assessments exam scripts are being withheld by exam moderator Konani Training and Development Institute due to a dispute between the company and the Department of Basic Education over a R29 million contract.
The Johannesburg company, Konani, was awarded the multimillion-rand contract to facilitate the assessments and verify the results but the department cancelled the contract at the eleventh hour.
The verification process – which includes sampling test papers from each province – was to have begun this week, but the department is scrambling to secure another moderator.
The department cancelled its contract with Konani while the exams were under way.
It said it had discovered alleged “false declarations” had been made by the company in its tender documents.
Konani has denied this.
On the day that the department cancelled the contract, a circular was sent to some schools informing them that the contract had been cancelled and that the exam scripts would not be handed over to Konani officials.
Konani says that by this stage it had collected 60 percent of the sample scripts.
These scripts remain in its possession.
It is refusing to hand over the scripts to the department until it has been paid the money it says it is due.
In a statement earlier this month the department said more than 6.8 million pupils in Grades 1 to 6 and Grade 9 would write the assessments, which test literacy and numeracy levels, from September 16.
“How are they going to give the report to the minister (Angie Motshekga) when they don’t have the scripts? Until the department pays the 2 000 guys we had on the ground we won’t release the scripts. We had done 80 to 90 percent of the work and the department must pay up,” said Konani Group owner Simon Tshikalange.
“Until the department pays the 2 000 guys we had on the ground we won’t release the scripts. We did 80 to 90 percent of the work and the department must pay.”
The company would go to the high court to compel the department to pay.
Most of the task had been done before the department decided to pull the plug, Tshikalange said.
Hitting out at the department, he said the assessments had been poorly planned and Konani officials had not been given the writing material until September 13 – three days before the assessments were to begin. The question papers had to be delivered to all provinces.
Konani hired courier companies to deliver the material to the provinces and employed 2 000 field workers to deliver the papers to schools, Tshikalange said.
Invigilators were engaged to monitor the tests and a building was leased in Pretoria where Konani markers could verify the marks.
Tshikalange said the process had been going well until September 18, when teachers told a number of his employees who were to collect scripts that they were not allowed to hand the scripts over to Konani.
Konani was first awarded the multimillion-rand contract last month.
Tshikalange said the department’s allegations about misleading information in its tender documents were untrue. Konani was involved in a legal battle with the Gauteng Education Department over a tender relating to a youth learnership programme and had not yet been found guilty.
On Sunday, national education spokesman Elijah Mahlangu said the contract had been cancelled because Konani had said in its tender documents that no contract awarded to it had been cancelled.
The department had since discovered that the Gauteng department had terminated a contract with Konani earlier this year, Mahlangu said.
“We immediately terminated their contract.”
The department would file a fraud complaint against the company with the police this week.
Mahlanga said it was the first time the national department had used the services of the company. It had yet to transfer any of the R29m to Konani.
Mahlanga said another contractor had been chosen on Friday and its appointment would be finalised this week.
“We are slightly late, but we will be able to manage.”
Mahlanga declined to comment on Konani’s withholding test scripts, saying this was being handled by the department’s legal team.
The national department has asked the Western Cape department to assist with monitoring verification assessments.
Paddy Attwell, spokesman for the provincial department, said the issue had not affected all schools. The national department based verification on a sample of schools in each province.
“In our case, the sample is 246 of about 1 450 schools that participated in the Annual National Assessments,” said Attwell.
Education expert Graeme Bloch said it was important that the marks be verified independently to ensure credibility.
“We have to be happy knowing that the results are credible. If they are not verified, then that would be a problem.”
Cape TImes