The department of basic education’s call for a national rewrite of the leaked mathematics and physical science papers has been met with fury by education unions.
On Friday, basic education minister Angie Motshekga announced that the maths paper 2 and physical science paper 2 would be rewritten on December 15 and 17 respectively.
The SA Democratic Teachers Union is filing an application for an urgent court interdict.
Sadtu provincial secretary Chris Mdingi said on Monday Motshekga’s decision to order the rewrite was “the most irrational decision ever”.
Mdingi claimed the department “only cares about the credibility of Umalusi” — the council for quality assurance in general and further education and training — “at the expense of the future of our fragile children”.
“We as Sadtu in the Eastern Cape reject this in totality for it does not make pedagogical sense at all,” he said.
Mdingi said the credibility of marking centres had now been compromised.
“We have had group copying cases but never was a paper rewritten,” he said.
The Public Servants Association in the Eastern Cape also slated the minister’s decision, with provincial manager Thami Makuzeni saying “we strongly feel the decision should be reviewed”.
“The leaking of the papers is disappointing as it affects the integrity of the whole examination.
“We request that a thorough investigation be conducted by the department and law enforcement agencies to identify the exact province and individuals who are involved, instead of punishing the entire country by subjecting innocent learners to rewrite a paper which they fully prepared for,” Makuzeni said.
He said the leaking of the papers should be a “wakeup call” for the department to provide maximum security for other question papers.
“The affected candidates may be subjected to writing another paper, which requires them to prepare for the exam,” she said.
“It is against this background that the PSA condemns the decision by the minister to subject all learners to a rewrite exercise.
“This decision must be reviewed to avoid affecting innocent learners negatively, both psychologically and otherwise,” Makuzeni said.
Eastern Cape DA MPL Yusuf Cassim said it was unfortunate that all matrics had “to suffer the consequences of the poor decisions made by a few”.
“We have called on the department of basic education to strengthen security relating to matric exams and have called on law enforcement agencies to ensure that investigations into the leaks are completed promptly to ensure that those implicated and found guilty are held accountable,” Cassim said.
The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa) said the decision to order the rewrites was an “overreaction”.
The union said the department’s finding — that the viral spread of the leaked information on cyber networks made it virtually impossible to identify the number of pupils who accessed the question papers — was ambiguous.
“It is merely an assumption at this stage that the leak was widespread,” Naptosa’s Basil Manuel said.
“Naptosa believes that the decision to order a national rewrite of the two papers is an overreaction.
“The term ‘viral’, used by the investigation task team, conjures up the belief that the papers were splashed all over social media.
“But we have not seen evidence that this was in fact the case,” Manuel said.
On Sunday more than 60,000 people signed an online petition protesting against the rewrites.
Late on Monday Sadtu said it was still preparing its interdict papers.
DispatchaLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.