Allegations of matric fraud

2006-06-12 08:31

Alet Rademeyer

Johannesburg - Allegations of extensive fraud have been made regarding the results of thousands of Limpopo matriculants at the end of last year.

After results were published, it came to light that several of the matriculants who had failed the record exam, passed the final exams and even obtained university exemption.

Several of the 189 schools that recorded a 0% pass rate in the record exam, showed much better results in the final exams, revealed an investigation by Beeld into the alleged irregularities in Limpopo's Mopani district.

There was one school which initially had 0% but ended up getting a 100% pass rate.

The Jim Rhangani High School in Giyani's 21 pupils all failed the record exam, but passed their final exams - six of them even obtaining university exemption.

From failing to exemption

The Mopani district comprises schools in the Giyani, Ritavi, Thabina, Bolobedu, Mamaila, Phalaborwa, Tzaneen and Letaba areas.

Beeld has in its possession evidence that of the 12 554 pupils who wrote the record exam, a total of 11 214 (89.3%) failed.

Education experts have serious misgivings about this sudden improvement.

One of them is Pat Esau, formerly involved in teachers' training at the Giyani College of Education.

After the amalgamation of the college with the University of Venda, experts, such as Esau, were transferred to the education districts where they work as subject advisers. He is now also involved in the Moan district schools where so-called Cass or continuing assessment, is made.

The Cass points account for about 25% of a candidate's marks in the final exam.

Cass is also one of the reasons why Limpopo's education department say pupils perform badly in the record exam and improve drastically in the final exam.

Esau says this is exactly where the problem lies, alleging that Cass is a myth.

It is not done properly by teachers and where it is done, it is done badly.

Cass marks are supposedly moderated externally, but there are allegations that this was not done properly in the Mopani district.

Esau expressed his concerns in an open letter to Education Minister Naledi Pandor last year.

He said in the letter that the poor results in the record exam were symptomatic of a culture of poor studying and teaching in the district.

He thought there shouldn't be such a big difference in the marks of candidates' record and final exams, especially taken into consideration that several pupils did not return to school after the record exam.

The spokesperson for the Limpopo education department, Ndo Mangala, said the reasons why pupils were performing badly in the record exam were that this exam was written in July/August, when teachers had just completed the syllabus and there had not been time for revision.

- Beeld