Pretoria – Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says matric results for the Class of 2013 will be released on 7 January next year.
Speaking at The New Age Business briefing on Monday morning, Motshekga also called on parents to play their role in supporting learners as they prepare to write their final exams later this month.
Learners from all nine provinces will this year sit for their month-long matric exams from 28 October to 29 November.
“The results will be released on 7 January 2014. There will be a new Statement of Results for the November 2013 National Senior Certificate exams. It has special security features including the RSA Watermark and a unique serial number.
“As I’ve said, we’ve done our best to prepare the system and learners. Targeted interventions were activated with provinces to support learners and schools throughout the year – a relatively stable year I must say, for education,” she said.
While matric exams have in the past been plagued with cheating through leaked exam papers, Motshekga said a new approach had been taken to ensure that learners play by the book, and added that they had been asked to also sign a pledge.
Motshekga said the training of markers was on-going and they would receive specialised training before they are dispatched to 118 training centre nationwide.
“To minimise risk, provinces have adopted a new approach to delay printing. Storage facilities have been inspected and security improved at distribution points. For tighter control, all scripts will be barcoded and scanned so that the number of scripts received will be controlled at key-points of the script-flow process,” she said.
Interventions in underperforming schools
Motshekga said her department has worked around the clock to prepare the education system and learners through short-term and long-term planning.
She said some of the targeted interventions that were activated with provinces to support learners and schools throughout the year included:
- Provinces conducting winter classes in underperforming schools;
- Monitoring curriculum coverage in underperforming schools;
- Rolling out the National Reading Programme for Grades R to 12 further to strengthen reading and literacy outcomes at classroom and school level; and
- Setting-up a Ministerial Task-team to investigate underperformance in a bid to improve performance in maths, science and technology. As part of the task team’s recommendation, the department is in the process of establishing a maths, science and technology department.
– SANews.gov.za
