Umalusi have stated that the The matric class of 2014 achieved the worst results for maths literacy since the subject was introduced. Other subjects with lower than expected results included life science, geography and maths.
The matric results of pupils at 39 KwaZulu-Natal schools have been red-flagged for “group copying” and teachers who may have colluded with the cheating will face “drastic measures”.
The disclosure by exam quality assurer, uMalusi, comes just three months after thousands of adult matric candidates had their results withheld for alleged cheating.
At a media briefing in Pretoria on Tuesday, uMalusi council chairman, Professor John Volmink, said there was evidence of group cheating at 58 matric exam centres in KZN and the Eastern Cape. KZN has a total of 1 741 exam centres.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is scheduled to announce the national and provincial results on Monday evening, while individual candidates in KZN will be able to collect their results from their schools from 8am on Tuesday.
There were cases of different handwriting on the same exam script in some instances.
Volmink said the new irregularities did not affect the integrity or credibility of the exams as a whole, because they were just 2 percent of the total exam centres.
uMalusi chief executive, Mafu Rakometsi, said:
uMalusi approved the release of the exam results written by 550 127 full-time and 138 533 part-time candidates.
Reacting to the cheating, education stakeholders said they wanted to be part of the investigation.
The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA’s KZN chief executive, Anthony Pierce, said it was concerning that KZN had twice been implicated in one year.
Meanwhile, The Independent Examinations Board announced a 98.38 percent pass rate for the 2014 academic year. Results for exams written mainly at private schools, were released in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga will announce the results for matrics writing National Senior Certificate exams at 6pm on Monday, 5 January 2015.
eNCA.com is partnering with the Department of Basic Education and will live stream that address. Click here or go to enca.com/MatricResults to get your #Matric2014 results.
