The Mpumalanga Department of Education says it is ready to administer the 2020 matric final examinations which are due to commence on Thursday.
The department says more than 57 000 full time candidates and more than 6 000 part-time will be writing this year’s National Senior Certificate (HSC) examinations.
The department says to comply with health protocols all candidates and invigilators will wear face masks at all times.
The Provincial Education Department says it will intensify and it is optimistic that it will manage incident-free examinations as it happened in the past eleven years.
The department says it will work closely with the police to identify hot spot areas and to put in place measures to curb incidents.
MEC for the department Bonakele Majuba says, “Irregularities will be attended to as they are reported to ensure that cases of cheating are resolved before the release of the results. The results will be announced on the 23 February 2021.”
Matric learners share their feelings about the upcoming exams:
100 000 learners to seat for exams in WCape
Western Cape Minister for Education Debbie Schafer says nearly 100 000 learners will write their National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations in the province starting Thursday.
Schafer says this is a much larger group compared to last years 95 427 learners who will sit for the exams this month.
Last year 64 465 candidates wrote the exams.
Schafer says, “The reason for this increase is that the May/June 2020 exam session could not take place due to COVID-19 pandemic, and was instead combined with the November session.”
“Administering the NSC exams is difficult enough without the added complications of a combined session amidst a global pandemic, WECD examinations directorate has done a sterling job in preparation for this session,” Schafer.
Over 100 thousands matric learners to start exams: KZN Education
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education says over 100 000 learners are expected to sit for matric exams on November 5, but some learners have opted to skip this year and start afresh next year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put a huge strain on the academic year and has made learners anxious about their finals.
Nineteen-year-old matric learner Saeeda Yasin is among those that are affected.
“I was excited about matric, experiencing this it was my final year, but due to this coronavirus pandemic I started having stress about what if I go to school and I get affected? What if these other learners have it and I get infected with coronavirus. It sort of affected my marks, they just dropped down. I thought that there was no way moving forward. I’d rather just start of fresh the following year.”
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In Gauteng the Department is taking no chances with COVID-19 having disrupted the schooling system and some learners finding it difficult to keep up, the department has this week taken 10 000 learners to various campsites.
The camps are in addition to Saturday classes which all township learners had access to in the last few months.
Vincent Zulu runs the department’s program called the Secondary School Improvement Programme.
“This programme is there to ensure that these learners also have confidence when they sit for exams. The teachers and the district are making sure in terms of the content that may have missed, because some of these learners may not have been able to go to classes because of the disruptions by COVID-19. So, they are able to therefore cover all those gaps.”
The camps will focus on gateway subjects such as Mathematics and Physical Science.
Dealing with stress during matric exams
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