The Basic Education Department says it plans to appeal parts of a judgment of the High Court in Pretoria setting aside the decision to rewrite two leaked matric exam papers. It says it will not push for the rewrite because of time constraints.
The Council of Educators says matriculants have faced a challenging year and that a rewrite would have only made matters worse.
The department’s spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, explains what parts of the ruling they have an issue with.
“The court did not really deal with the crux of the matter which is the credibility, fairness and integrity of the examination – so that matter remains unresolved and the questions around that have yet to be answered and we feel that the rewrite should not go ahead because anyway there is no time for that. But we are still going to challenge the court ruling seeing that there are aspects of it that are problematic,” says Mhlanga.
The court delivered judgment in an application challenging the Basic Education Department’s decision that the two leaked matric exam papers should be rewritten.
The South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (SADTU), lobby group AfriForum and independent learners had brought the urgent court application before the court.
The two papers in question are Physical Science Paper Two and Mathematics Paper Two.
Minister Motshekga announced last Friday that learners would rewrite the two papers on December 15 and 17, respectively.
In the video below, Elijah Mhlanga defended DBE’s decision on rewriting Maths, Physical Science paper 2:
