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Leaked exam paper chaos
11/10/2006 10:59 - (SA)
Buks Viljoen, Beeld
Sabie - Education authorities were rattled after a matric exam paper, due to be written on Thursday, was picked up on a sidewalk in the town last week.
The South African Teachers Union would ask that the standard grade geography paper be scrapped.
The chairperson of the union in Mpumalanga, Louis Swanepoel, said that for the sake of integrity, they wanted the replacement paper, which was set for emergencies, to be used instead.
It was the fourth consecutive year that there was controversy in Mpumalanga about the matric exam.
A part of the English version of a standard grade geography paper which matriculants would have written on Thursday was found in the main street last Thursday. It was the first year that the same geography paper was being used throughout the country.
In spite of concern about where the paper came from, deputy director-general of further education and training of the national department of education Penny Vinjevold said on Tuesday that the examination would proceed normally on Thursday. She did not want to answer further questions.
Matter would be discussed
Brain Schreuder, deputy director general of the Western Cape education department, said there was no indication of a leaked exam in the Western Cape.
He said it would not be possible to have the replacement exam paper printed and distributed nationally by Thursday. If the national department took a decision on the matter, it was probably more likely that matrics wrote the paper in question at a later date.
Fanie Klopper from Sabie told Beeld on Tuesday how he had picked up the paper on the sidewalk in front of the hardware shop where he worked.
The paper was given later to Dr Pieter Clase, principal of the Sybrand van Niekerk high school at Sabie.
''A piece of the paper was cut off, but it clearly stated that it was the geography paper for the October/November 2006 exam,'' Klopper said. He said there was also a bar code on the front page of the paper.
An informed person close to the investigation confirmed that the bar code on the paper was that of the Eastern Cape.
Three officials of the Mpumalanga education department had questioned people about the matter on Monday.
Umalusi (the quality assurer in education) deputy chief Mark Potterton confirmed that the matter had been reported to them.
He said a meeting would be held on national exam irregularities on Friday and that they would decide then how to deal with the matter.
''It's a tragedy. We had so much faith that security around the matric exams had eventually reached an acceptable level,'' said president of the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa Dave Balt.
- Beeld
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