Umalusi green lights its examination readiness in Private and Public schools

The Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, Umalusi, has given the green light for the writing of the 2022 end of year examinations.

The education quality assurance council completed its evaluation on whether public and private schools are ready to handle the large number of pupils expected to write their final matric papers.

In doing so, he council uses a framework that focuses on a number of areas, including:

·        management of exams;

·        registration of candidates;

·        registration of exam centres; and

·        printing, packaging and distribution of question papers.

·        conduct of examinations,

·        selection and appointment of marking personnel

·        standardisation of marking guidelines,

·        audit of marking centres,

·        audit of the systems for mark capturing, and (k) development of systems for the management of examination irregularities

 

Umalusi said that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) currently has 923 460 (up from 897,786 in 2021), learners enrolled for the National Senior Certificate exams. This number comprises full-time and part-time scholars.

The assessment bodies are the DBE, Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), Independent Examinations Board (IEB), and the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI).

Umalusi CEO, Dr Mafu Rakometsi, said that they requested the department to make alternative arrangements for the supply of power during the writing of the year-end examinations to mitigate the risk of load-shedding.Audio 1

“The request that we have made to the department is that they should bring to the attention of Eskom the dates when these subjects will be written –  IT + CAT and Eskom should be requested to ensure that there is no load shedding at that time. However, should it happen that there’s load shedding we’ve got a Plan B, where can organise a re-write.  We are not in full control of the situation, we can only appeal to Eskom, the schools, and the districts to improvise.”

Meanwhile he said warned communities against using national examinations as advantages for their protest actions.

The Department of Basic Education candidature will sit for the examinations at 6 885-exam centres across the country. Umalusi said marking will be conducted at 186 marking centres by 53 926 markers. The Independent Examinations Board Web (IEB) has 13 875 candidates who will write the examinations at 232 examination centres for full-time candidates and 6 centres for part-time candidates. These numbers include 15 new IEB schools.

Overall, approximately 942 000 candidates distributed across the three assessment bodies are registered to write the NSC in 2022

The National Certificate Vocational (NCV) examinations will start on 24 October and conclude on 28 November while the NATED (N2 – N3) ones are scheduled to take place between 14 and 30 November 2022.

by Everngelista Muza