Hundreds of matrics still awaiting fate

Department scrambles to fix marks bungle

NEARLY a week after the national release of the 2012 matric results, hundreds of matriculants across the Eastern Cape are unsure whether they have passed or failed as they still frantically await their marks. The provincial Education Department is now in a scramble to fix the matric results bungles before universities open after numerous pupils did not get their results, raising fears that they had failed.

At Humansdorp’s Lungiso High and Humansdorp Secondary schools, 52 and 207 matriculants respectively still do not know their fate as their maths literacy and tourism results are still outstanding.

Lungiso principal Sebenzile Hoko said the Uitenhage district office, under which Humansdorp falls, put the blame solely on the provincial department despite his having submitted figures to them.

“We were called in for a meeting on December 26 to verify results and it was there that I picked up that 52 of our maths literacy pupils were not given results,” he said. “I brought this up and was told that it would be corrected by the release on January 3, but we were notified on January 2 that it still had not been done.”

Hoko said the department told him they were missing his school-based assessment (SBA) results, which he said he had submitted on time last year.

He was told that this would be rectified yesterday and the results released today, but by late yesterday afternoon there had been no word from the department.

“Clearly someone is not doing their job and the children have to suffer once again.”

At nearby Humansdorp Secondary, more than 200 of their 238 matrics did not get their results.

These were pupils who had taken tourism as a subject.

Principal Peter Petersen said there had been a bungle in capturing the marks for tourism and he was told the results would be released yesterday.

‘ Someone is not doing their job and the children have to suffer once again

“The last I heard was that the results were going to be out [yesterday], but have not heard anything,” he said.

Petersen said they had done everything to ensure that parents and pupils were informed about any developments.

“Fortunately, we have an SMS line and we told parents the day before the publishing of the results not to be alarmed when their children’s names did not appear in the paper,” he said.

In Port Elizabeth, a number of schools were also said to be in the same predicament, although with fewer pupils affected.

Kwazakhele High School principal Mkuseli Kungwayo said two of their 111 matriculants who wrote were still without their results.

Eastern Cape Education Department spokesman Malibongwe Mtima said they were spending this week “focusing on all irregularities around the matric results”.

“There are subjects that were not captured correctly and we are in the process of rectifying all [cases] this week,” he said.

The national department is also on a countrywide drive to finalise the results of a number of pupils whose private schools were deregistered in November after some irregularities.

National Basic Education Department spokesman Panyaza Lesufi said there were a host of illegally operating private schools deregistered by regulatory body Umalusi shortly before the final exams.

“This meant that they could not write their exams, but Umalusi agreed that we take over [the running of exams],” he said.

“We had to get the school-based assessment results, which was not possible at the time.”

Lesufi said the problems were spread across the country, with the majority of cases in Johannesburg.

He was insistent this would not interfere with pupils’ ability to go to university or access their bursaries as they had alerted the Association of Higher Education, tertiary and bursary institutions to the delay.

“So nobody will lose out on their place in university or their bursaries,” he said.