Johannesburg - The Department of Basic Education insists it has done all it could to support the Limpopo Education Department, in spite of exam leaks.
Life Sciences paper 2 was leaked in the Vhembe district. So far, at least 11 schools in the region have been implicated.
Announcing the leak last week, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga admitted that the department and quality assurer Umalusi found a litany of problems when they checked the province’s exam readiness.
Among some of the issues raised were that the province did not have enough staff members to administer exams and the question paper storage facility was not sufficiently secured.
Despite all that the province was allowed to continue administering exams.
On Monday, when asked why the national department didn’t take over, spokeswoman Troy Martens said: “The department supported the province as much as it could. We sent monitors to the province to make sure everything was working smoothly. We wanted to assist the province but not take over the running of exams.”
Martens said the department was trying to establish the extent of the leak.
At the weekend, Motshekga said the scope of their investigations had grown after seven of the eight candidates questioned admitted to getting the paper before it was written.
She said the investigation included 11 schools in the Vhembe district and that the department was looking into the possibility that candidates in other provinces might have had access to the leaked papers if any of the matrics had send electronic copies to friends.
The minister said the department was also looking into whether other exam papers were leaked. An investigation team made up of officials from the South African Qualifications Authority, Unisa, Umalusi and the department are working on the case.
Candidates found guilty of cheating could be banned from sitting for exams for the next two years.
The department has said it would consider a rewrite as the last option and the extent of the rewrite would be determined by the information gathered during investigations.
The DA has accused Motshekga and Limpopo Education MEC Ishmael Kgetjepe of lacking accountability.
DA Limpopo education spokesman, Jacques Smalle, said it wasn’t good enough for the two to send an investigative team to the department a week after the alleged leak.
“The exam leaks that surfaced during last week’s matric Life Sciences Paper 2, exposed that lack of consequence for poor performance and transgressions by department officials still haunt the crippled Limpopo Department of Education,” he said.
“The DA believes we can ensure quality education through accountable officials and public servants who are willing to sign performance agreements and are open to oversight and monitoring.”
This is the second year in a row that a cheating scandal involving matric exams has surfaced.
Last year, about 3 000 matrics were implicated in 153 exam centres for group cheating. Motshekga said that in the Eastern Cape, results at seven centres were nullified while seven others had been rescheduled due to legal representation.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the results at 11 exam centres were nullified and 11 others were rescheduled because candidates didn’t take part in the initial hearing or sought legal representation.
Martens said the department was trying to ensure that teachers and invigilators implicated in the cheating scandal were charged.
Matric exams end on Friday when pupils sit for the visual arts and music exams.
The Star
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