Education minister Gwarube clarifies cost of running matric exams

Minister of basic education Siviwe Gwarube has responded to the backlash regarding the costs involved in printing matric exam papers. 

City Press incorrectly reported that the bill for printing the matric examination papers this year had ballooned hugely after eight out of nine provinces outsourced the printing to private printing companies instead of using the government printing works (GPW).

But Gwarube has issued a statement correcting the information published in the City Press article on November 10.

She said the story had led to the misconception that the cost of printing the exam papers amounted to R3.6bn when in fact that was the cost of running the exams in their entirety, including the printing.

“The newspaper article has created an impression that the cost of printing question papers for the National Senior Certificate examination was R3.6bn. However, it costs between R3,800 and R4,000 per candidate writing seven subjects to administer the entire process involved in the October/November National Senior Certificate examinations,” the department said in a statement. 

The statement said that this year there are 727,121 full-time candidates writing seven subjects.

“If we calculate the 727,121 candidates multiplied by R4,000 the total is R2.9bn. In addition, there are 155,215 part-time candidates who write one, two, three or more subjects,” said the department.

The department revealed that the total estimated cost of R3.6bn covered processes such as setting and moderating the exams, printing, transport and storage, security, marking and the maintenance of the examination computer system.

“Adding the R2.9bn to the estimated cost for the 155,215 part-time candidates amounts to R3.6bn. Thus, the total estimated cost to administer the full examination to both full-time and part-time candidates is around R3.6bn [including printing],” said the statement.


“The estimated cost for just the printing and packaging is R220m, a fraction of the R3.6bn quoted by City Press,” said the statement. 

The department clarified that provinces are not obliged to use the Government Printing Works (GPW) for printing exam papers.

The department said the government printer lacks the capacity to print secure question papers for all nine provinces.

“Printing in Pretoria at GPW is not the most convenient arrangement for most education departments,” read the statement.

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