By Simon Nare
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has assured Parliament’s portfolio committee on education that every contingency plan has been put in place to ensure the National Senior Certificate exams proceeded without any glitches.
The minister told the committee that the first day of the exams went smoothly save for minor hiccups that emerged after the tests and had not affected the actual writing by the learners.
She said from the department’s side, they had done everything possible to counter any disruptions, but local municipalities would need to step up their part to ensure there were no load reductions.
“From our side we have made sure that we have contingent plans in place, but of course it will be really helpful if this is a government effort,” she told the committee.
Gwarube said no learner has been left behind during the preparations for the exams.
She added that learners who were visually impaired had also been catered for, with exams papers supplied in braille and technology in place for those who would supplement the answers verbally.
The minister said the department was in constant contact with law enforcement agencies for any eventualities in all the provinces.
“We also have the assistance of the SANDF where necessary. So, on our side we have activated all of the channels,” she said.
Gwarube said there were a number of factors leading to fewer learners writing the exams.
“It doesn’t mean that we had 1.2 million learners then and now we have over 800,000 candidates writing exams. One, there are unfortunate incidents of death and there are also incidents where a learner leaves school to pursue other avenues even colleges.
“There are various other exits points in the system that allow learners to actually go to TVET to go and acquire skills and not continue to learn. I think it is important for us to allow children to be able to explore various ways of getting an education,” she said.
The minister added that not all learners wanted to finish high school and go to university, but others wanted to acquire skills and enter the job market.
The committee heard from the departmental team that appeared alongside the minister that while preparing for the exams, provinces maintained constant monitoring of learner submission and progress to identify a high-risk learner early in the year.
They were provided with extended opportunities for success through the provision of extra days for submitting practical assessment work and catch up plans were specifically drawn up to suit their environmental challenges.
Every week, virtual content trainings were conducted to cover gaps left by teacher education and these included the Bloom’s Taxonomy, practical examination programme, essay writing and marking trainings.
“To manage the big classes, the school management teams were assisted with enough time to get all the practical work done. This included the necessary equipment to do the recordings of the practical work and data to store it,” the department’s presentation revealed.
The committee heard that the examination would span over 28 days with 162 question papers set by the department in 33 non-official languages and five specialised non-languages subjects.
INSIDE EDUCATION
