The 2025 national senior certificate exams are at the halfway mark, and the basic education department reports the exams are progressing smoothly around the country.
More than 920,000 candidates are writing their final matric exams at 6,800 centres nationwide.
“Despite the scale of the process and its logistical complexity, most exam sessions have taken place without any disruption,” the department said.
A few isolated community protests and minor technical or administrative issues have occurred, but these were swiftly resolved, it said.
“The minor challenges we’ve experienced have been quickly addressed through established risk-management and contingency measures.”
The department also responded to public concerns about the perceived difficulty of the 2025 mathematics papers 1 and 2.
While some pupils, parents, and members of the public have questioned the level of difficulty, “the [department] assures everyone that the exam papers are carefully crafted to assess a wide range of cognitive skills, in line with curriculum standards”.
“Each paper contains a mix of basic concepts and higher-order problem-solving questions. To further ensure fairness, the standardisation process, overseen by Umalusi, the Quality Council for General and Further Education and Training, scientifically reviews any performance variations before final results are confirmed.
“This process guarantees that if a paper proves more challenging than expected, no learner will be unfairly disadvantaged.”
TimesLIVE
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