Matric Exam leak

Image via Adobe Stock

Matric rewrite: Probe reveals ‘top achievers’ saw leaked exam

Reports have emerged that the majority of the matric student who potentially benefitted from the leak were ‘top achievers’.

Matric Exam leak

Image via Adobe Stock

After the unprecedented announcement that South Africa’s matrics will have to rewrite the Maths and Physical Sciences papers that were leaked prior to being written, unions have labelled the move unnecessary and have indicated their intention to compel student’s to boycott the rewrite as they launch court proceedings against the Department of Basic Education. 

The scandal has also churned out more drama as reports emerge that some of the country’s “top achievers” are among the majority of students found to have had access to the Maths paper that was leaked in November. 

Unions reject rewrite decision  

The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) said on Saturday 5 December that they would be filing urgent court submissions to ensure that the decision to rewrite the exams is reversed. Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said that because only 195 pupils have thus far been found to have potentially benefitted from having caught a glimpse of the paper before they were due to write it, the decision is unnecessary. 

“The Minister called a meeting today and the unions said there is no basis for a national rewrite, based on the initial investigation. Because the number of pupils (implicated) was a few and it did not warrant that all pupils must be punished,” Maluleke said.

“We are working on the (court) papers now to reverse the decision. It has no legal basis. The investigation shows that there was no major cheating and those that cheated will show up in the marking process. We want to serve the papers to the court on Monday, we are just putting together some affidavits form pupils.”

DBE ‘anticipated’ resistance from unions over matric exam rewrite  

The Congress of South African Students (Cosas) has also called on pupils not to sit for the matric exam rewrites, saying that hey reject Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s announcement.

“The Department of Basic Education has made a blunder by not first engaging the stakeholders in the education sector when they took that decision,” said Cosas’s Douglas Ngobeni.

The department of Basic Education said that they anticipated resistance from unions. 

“It is a situation that we planned for,” said department spokesperson Elijah Mahlangu. “Our legal teams are considering all possibilities, in terms of what the response from the department is going to be.”

Majority of matrics identified in probe ‘top achievers’ 

Meanwhile, it has been reported by the Sunday Times on Sunday 6 December that of the students who have been found to have gained access to the leaked paper, 134 were part of a “Top Achievers WhatsApp group” that included top maths pupils from across South Africa who had been tutored by Stellenbosch University (SU). 

The interim report compiled by the national investigation task team that probed the leak has allegedly shown that these students were part of a group selected by Stellenbosch University’s centre for pedagogy, which manages a talent development programme. This programme is “a first opportunity university preparation programme for academically talented matric pupils in maths and physical science,” according to SU spokesperson Martin Viljoen. 

“A very effective and well-managed part of the programme is a WhatsApp group used by learners for peer-to-peer discussions. Hundreds of questions from textbooks and previous exam papers are discussed on this group on a daily basis and access to the WhatsApp group is only open to current members of the talent development programme,” said Viljoen.

He said that the questions were partially shared on the matric WhatsApp group, but that they had not necessarily been aware that what they were seeing was ultimately the final paper. 

“The entire paper was not shared on the group, nor were most learners probably aware of the fact that the two questions were from the leaked paper at the time they were shared.”