| Exam process gets thumbs-up |
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| Written by Latoya Newman | |
(This article was originally published on page 5 of The Mercury on October 29, 2008)
Examinations monitoring body Umalusi has given the country's provincial education departments, including KwaZulu-Natal, the all-clear for the matric final exams which start on Wednesday.Thousands of candidates will write 13 additional language papers including Latin, French, Arabic and Hindi. A total of 592 000 grade 12 pupils (152 341 in KZN) will write the National Senior Certificate examinations. This is the first time in the history of South Africa that all grade 12s in public schools will write the same papers. Eugenie Rabe, chief operations officer at Umalusi - which is responsible for assuring the quality of examination papers and processes - said preparations had been monitored closely. She said Umalusi had externally moderated all question papers and verified education departments' reports on their readiness to host examinations through monitoring visits. "This process has not highlighted any significant issues in 2008," she said. Umalusi would continue to monitor the exams. Some examination centres would also be monitored to check compliance with examination policy and marking centres to evaluate the marking process. Rabe said the education department had taken all the necessary steps in terms of printing, security and other exam processes. "Although this is a new examination, the senior certificate (old matric system) machinery is still in place as far as the administration and conduct of the examinations is concerned," she said. This year's exams are set on the new national curriculum statement. Under the new system, only one grade of papers is set. All pupils are also compelled to write either mathematics or mathematical literacy, and all pupils have to take life orientation (which is 100 percent continuous assessment). 
Education department spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele said some aspects of the curriculum remained the same. "Much of the content is the same as in the old curriculum, although the content has been updated and is assessed in ways that require deeper levels of understanding. "Internal school-based assessment counts 25 percent of the final mark and the final examination 75 percent," he said. The minimum requirements to obtain the new certificate include that pupils must take seven subjects - two languages, maths or maths literacy, life orientation and three subjects from the approved list of subjects. They must obtain a minimum of 40 percent in three subjects (one must be the home language) and 30 percent in three other subjects. Ngqengelele said while it had been argued that these were very low requirements, there were two responses to the argument. "No pupil should aim to achieve these minimum requirements but should aim to achieve the highest marks possible. Second, the requirements are more demanding than for the old senior certificate. Pupils are required to pass six subjects and cannot pass on an aggregate mark. In addition, the examinations are pitched at the old higher grade level and in this way are also more demanding," he said. On Wednesday, pupils will write computer application technology and 15 language papers. |
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