Umalusi, gives green light for 2023 matric results to be released

National education quality assurance body, Umalusi, has approved the release of the 2023 examinations.

CEO Dr. Mafu Rakometsi briefed the media on Monday to pronounce on the 2023 end of year national examination results. These are the results of the examinations that were administered by the public and private assessment bodies, between October and December 2023.

PHOTO: X - @UmalusiSA - From left: Umalusi CEO, Dr. Mafu Rakometsi; Umalusi council chairperson, Prof. Yunus Ballim

About one million one hundred and fifty thousand candidates wrote the end of year exams. Of that number, the National Senior Certificate accounts for nearly 920 000 candidates or 80%.

The remaining 20% of the candidates are distributed across the NC(V) Levels 2-4, NATED (N2- N3) and GETC examinations.

Rakometsi says 11 suspects were arrested in connection with selling and buying of fake and /or fraudulent certificates

‘’The first two (2) suspects were arrested in Burgersfort in Limpopo on 27 October, one suspect was arrested in Pretoria in November, the next three (3) were arrested on 20 November, and the last five (5) were nabbed on 13 December 2023 again in Burgersfort, Limpopo. On the other hand, the Hawks arrested an employee of the Department of Higher Education on 11 December 2023 for fraudulently issuing a diploma certificate for cash. The suspect has been charged with corruption and his court case has been postponed to 19 January 2024. That is in five days from now.’’

‘’Police investigations are ongoing and Umalusi will continue to work closely with the law enforcement agencies in whatever way possible to ensure that the scammers or fraudsters are made to face the full might of the law.’’

‘’Umalusi would like to reassure the public that its certificates have robust safeguards to protect their authenticity and credibility. Let me make it crystal clear: the mandate of Umalusi is to issue authentic certificates to qualifying candidates. Umalusi has got not business with fake certificates. Fake certificates are issued by scammers or fraudsters who are not employees of Umalusi. We advise all employers both in the public and private sectors to consider verifying their current and future employees’ qualifications through the verification agencies whose contact details are available on the website of Umalusi (www.umalusi.org.za). On the landing page, you simply click on the Certification & Verification icon,’’ said Ramoketsi.

Umalusi previously highlighted loadshedding, community protests and cheating as some of the factors that could negatively affect the integrity of the examinations.

‘’We are happy to report that all assessment bodies heeded the advice given to make alternative arrangements for the supply of power during the writing of examinations to mitigate the effect of load-shedding. Regarding community protests, we have received no reports about serious cases of community protests that may have prevented candidates from writing the examinations. We would like to thank the South African public for heeding the call to protect the delicate examinations processes. It is our belief that the fairest to do for the young people of our country is to create a conducive environment for them to demonstrate their true educational potential through the examination process.’’

‘’Umalusi appreciates the efforts of all the four assessment bodies for ensuring that candidates were shielded from all forms of hindrances. That gives the assurance that there was no compromise to the 2023 end of year national examinations’ integrity and credibility.’’

Umalusi CEO says there were three areas of concern

‘’Firstly, we have previously cautioned members of the public against registering to write the examinations at unaccredited private centres or institutions. We continue to urge the public to visit the Umalusi website (www.umalusi.org.za) to access a list of all private institutions accredited to offer any Umalusi-associated qualification. You will find useful information to assist you to verify if an independent school or a private college is accredited before you can register with it. Alternatively, you can call us on 012 349 1510 and press the relevant option. It is crucially important for us all not to allow unregistered and unaccredited institutions to thrive at the expense of unsuspecting candidates.

The second area of concern relates to printing errors or poor print quality in some of the question papers for which I would like to cite the following examples:

There was an omission of a subscript on the formula of an organic compound in Physical Sciences Paper 2 in Question 2.2 (3 marks).

The Physical Sciences Paper 2 in the North-West had missing grid lines in Question 3.5 (6 marks).

The three Civil Technology specializations (Civil Services, Construction and Woodworking) in both the English and Afrikaans versions had major printing errors in Limpopo. The poor print quality in the Civil Services specialisation affected question worth 60 marks in English version and 62 marks in the Afrikaans version. In Construction questions worth of 31 marks in the English version and 14 marks in Afrikaans were affected. The marks affected in the Woodworking specialisation were 22 and 26 for English and Afrikaans respectively.

Aside from printing quality, we would like to raise translation quality as something that needs careful attention. Due to poor quality of translation from English into Afrikaans, candidates could not respond to Questions 3.2.5 and 3.2.6 worth 3 marks in the Afrikaans version of Geography Paper 1.

To mitigate the possible impact of these errors on performance of candidates, the questions concerned were excluded from the marking process and the marks achieved upscaled using conversion tables.

On the other hand, it is regrettable that one of the questions in the Mathematical Literacy Paper 1 naively used the words ‘Mandatory Palestine’. This was caused by the examiners and moderators being unaware of the political connotations of the words. Umalusi appreciates the fact that the DBE issued an apology in this regard.

Finally, Umalusi is concerned about the unresolved irregularities associated with the previous cycle of examinations, especially in the private college space involving the GETC: ABET examinations. We urge the assessment bodies concerned to give this matter the priority that it deserves,’’ said Ramoketsi.

Umalusi says 945 candidates who wrote the NSC examinations in 2023, were cases of group copying. CEO Dr. Mafu Rakometsi says of these, 763 cases (80.7%) cases were detected in KwaZulu-Natal and 164 (17.7%) in Mpumalanga.

‘’According to the report submitted, these are cases where the candidates displayed common answers and, in some cases, same wrong and right answers. These cases are not yet resolved because the numbers are still being verified,’’ said Dr. Mafu Rakometsi, Umalusi CEO.

Candidates in IEB schools, or private schools, will have access to their results on Thursday, while those who wrote the National Senior exams will get their results on Friday

 

For Bush Radio News, I’m Mitchum George