Judge Nathan Davis must have been in a foul mood when he set aside basic education minister Angie Motshekga’s decision for a rewrite of matric papers maths 2 and physical science 2. The decision was described as “irregular and unlawful”, with Davis dismissing the minister’s after-the-fact clarification that she did not, in law, have the authority to make the rewrite decision as “nonsensical ... an afterthought, devoid of a factual basis ... [a] shambles”. Haibo!
Poor Umalusi, the quality assurer for exams, also got klapped for its “unwarranted dictates” on rewriting, to which the minister and her department apparently “succumbed”. Umalusi’s position on the possibility of “substantial irregularities” in the two exams could be found to be “irrational” to the extent that “any reliance on its prescripts or dictates would equally be irrational”. Furthermore, the department’s rushed dates for the two rewrites, opined the judge, “smacked of callousness”.
One thing I know is that some of the applicants, including the teachers’ union Sadtu, must have had a field day with this verbal assault on the minister, her department and the quality assurer of our national examinations.
Once Davis made his decision, the Motshekga had no choice but to abide by the judgment. She could have appealed, and possibly won in a higher court, but that would have thrown the rewriting dates — they were scheduled for this week — into disarray and piled immeasurable distress on pupils caught up in a legal back-and-forth inside a pandemic that threatens human lives. For the sake of the matrics, it appears this was a good decision by officialdom not to pursue the matter further.
There is just one small problem. What if Umalusi refuses to certify the papers next year? Let’s break this down.
Apart from questions of transparent processes and appropriate authority (the director-general and others, not the minister) to make rewriting decisions, much of the judge’s decision was based on the extent of the leakage of the papers. If it is only 195 cheats out of 339,000 who wrote maths II, that is a mere 0.06% of the candidates and an even smaller percentage in the case of the science paper. Why punish the majority when you can deal with a handful of skelms?
Here’s the rub. I have it on good authority that investigators are finding this paper was leaked in all nine provinces and that means, says a senior official, that the examination is “irrevocably compromised”. In other words, by the time Umalusi makes the call early next year on whether to certify the results as free of “systemic irregularities that compromise the integrity of examinations on a large scale, for example, paper leakages” (the assurer’s standard), the decision might have catastrophic consequences for all the maths and science candidates of 2020. Who will be laughing then? Put differently, if the pupils had simply rewritten the exams in mid-December 2020 as scheduled, the integrity of the examinations would have been secured and the candidates would have had peace of mind going into the new year.
If the leaks of the papers are found to be widespread, Umalusi will face the biggest test yet of its integrity since the founding of the statutory body in 2003. It could, like so many other hollowed-out state institutions, fold under political pressure and certify the examinations for the sake of peace.
Or it could live up to its mandate and tell the truth about the integrity (or lack thereof) of the 2020 examinations. If Umalusi, based on the data from the full criminal investigation, decides not to certify the examination, then every pupil will have to rewrite mathematics and physical science — and not only the second papers.
Science and (“pure”) maths pupils are typically the ones who plan for university studies; under a non-certification scenario these pupils will not be eligible to continue into higher education unless universities make exceptions pending the release of the 2021 rewritten examinations. It could all be a gigantic mess.
Responding to the judgment, the assurer has given advance warning: “Umalusi cannot pre-empt the outcome of its own processes regarding the approval of the results” since all quality assurance processes must be implemented “before a final decision about the credibility and integrity of national examinations can be made.” The matter is not over, warned the department, for “the court did not deal with the crux of the matter ... the credibility, integrity and fairness of the examinations”. A senior official gave me this blunt reminder: there are pupils without matric certificates today because their lawyers refused to allow them to cooperate in the so-called “group copying” case of a few years ago.
Hier kom ’n ding.
I pray that examination corruption is limited to only a few pupils, and that the culprits are identified and severely punished. In such a case, Umalusi might well certify the results. But if, as expected, the leaks are widespread, then the public has the right to demand the quality of our national examination not be compromised on the altar of expediency. At the end of the day, every pupil wants to hold a certificate that is unstained by the indelible ink of corruption. We owe that much to the long-suffering matriculant class of 2020.
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