'Bungling' kills matric dreams

2008-01-07 12:01

Tshwarelo eseng Mogakane

Standerton - Some of Mpumalanga's brightest matriculants may be unable to attend university this year because of apparent bungling in the matric marking process.

Lucy Malatjie, from Ben W Malatjie High in Bushbuckridge, was expecting to secure university placement on the strength of her results, but was told that she had failed matric because she hadn't written her Sepedi exam.

"It is shocking. I worked my heart out this year, and definitely wrote that final exam. My whole family was counting on me to uplift them by winning entry to university and getting a good job. Now I don't know what to do. My dreams have been shattered," she said.

Chris Moodley, a parent from Stan West Combined School in Standerton, said his twin sons had secured preliminary seats at Wits and Pretoria universities based on their year marks, but would now lose their places because they cannot produce accurate final marks.

Something 'dreadfully wrong'

He said his sons were amongst the top ten pupils at their school throughout the year, but were told they hadn't written their Afrikaans paper, and had scored less than 50% in subjects such as maths, in which they had always excelled.

"Everyone, from teachers to fellow pupils, saw the boys write the Afrikaans exam. So, how can the department say they didn't? There is also something dreadfully wrong with the rest of their marks," said Moodley.

Bharti Sing, mother of 17-year-old Raquel Sing who also attends Stan West, said her daughter, a top student, was also incorrectly marked as being absent from the final Afrikaans exam.

"We will be able to prove that the department is wrong, but in the interim we will lose our place at university to applicants from provinces where officials know what they're doing," said Sing.

The South African Students Congress (SASCO) has called for an urgent national investigation into the scandal.

"These are people's lives that they are messing with. Someone needs to be held responsible, and if we can't rely on the province to play open cards, than national minister Naledi Pandor must order an investigation," said SASCO national president David Maimela.

SASCO will write to Pandor this week to request an investigation.

Mpumalanga education spokesperson, Hlahla Ngwenya, does not believe that the problems are widespread, however. He said he was only aware of problems in Bushbuckridge, and not in Standerton.

"We have investigated the complaints, and believe that the problem is confined to just Bushbuckridge," he said. "We believe the errors happened when officials were forced to send off incomplete report cards, to meet national deadlines, before they actually received all the exam results. We are busy fixing the problem," said Ngwenya.

Mpumalanga recorded a 4.5% drop in its matric pass rate, from 65.3% in 2006 to 60.8% in 2007.

The national exam watchdog, Umalusi, declined to comment until it was presented with the full facts.

- African Eye