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South Africa: State Ratifies Suspension of Matric Invigilators
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
3 December 2007
Posted to the web 3 December 2007
Sue Blaine
Johannesburg
THE Western Cape education department has ratified the suspension of three matric exam invigilators who are alleged to have presided over exam rooms in which cheating took place, the department's director-general, Brian Schreuder, said on Friday.
"That means that our original decision to suspend (the invigilators) was borne out by indications in (a disciplinary meeting held by the department last week) that some form of neglect or wrongdoing took place that justifies their suspension," Schreuder said.
This is the first time officials have allegedly been involved in cheating since 2004, when the release of Mpumalanga's matric results was held over to January while officials investigated allegations, which were later proved .
Should the allegations be proved, the marks of about 60 matric candidates who wrote the two exams might be declared invalid and criminal charges could be laid against the invigilators.
Depending on what comes out during Western Cape's exam marking process, which started last week and ends on Thursday , the final marks of the 60 candidates who wrote the Afrikaans second language second paper on October 29 and Economics on October 31 in three of the examination rooms at Gugulethu's Fezeka Secondary School could be withheld until sometime next year, Schreuder said.
The province's irregularities committee would meet times ahead of the national and provincial release of this year's matric results on December 28, and a decision on whether there was cheating in the exams would be made at these meetings, he said.
For security reasons, Western Cape did not have teachers invigilate matric examinations. Invigilators were contracted to the department and are most often people of standing from the local community -- such as retired teachers or religious leaders.
Schreuder said he could not officially comment on whether there was evidence that cheating had taken place under the three invigilators' eyes.
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The department would be comparing the candidates' responses to questions in the two exams along with any other irregularities exam markers highlighted, Schreuder said.
Before the 2004 Mpumalanga cheating scandal, SA had had six years of relative quiet regarding cheating in matric exams.
The allegations would be left to the Western Cape education department to sort out, but the outcome would be made known before the national matric results were released, Penny Vinjevold, national education director- general of further education and training, said last month.
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