EDITORIAL | Government must make sure matric exam leaks never happen again

Panic set in nearly two-and-a-half months ago when the basic education department announced that matric mathematics and physical science papers 2 exams would have to be rewritten.

The exams, or at least portions of them, had been leaked via WhatsApp and the department was adamant the integrity of the papers was compromised. The only solution, even if it was an admittedly difficult decision, was for a national rewrite of both.

At the time, on December 4, the department’s chief director for national assessment and public examination Dr Rufus Poliah said: “When we presented our reports to Umalusi, they concluded that the integrity and credibility of the two question papers have been irrevocably compromised.”

The exams were not rewritten after the department lost a heavily contested case in the Pretoria high court. Parents sighed in collective relief. But with investigations into the full extent of the leaks still ongoing, question marks remained as to whether the examinations would be signed off as credible by quality assurance body Umalusi.

Now, those fears are, hopefully, allayed.

At a department briefing on Sunday, Hugh Amoore, chair of the national investigations task team that probed the leaks, said its conclusions were that the exams, as a whole, and the results of the two suspect papers, should be given the thumbs-up. This followed an extensive investigation into the performances of the pupils known to have received them and the general patterns and performance across the two subjects.

From this evidence, the leaks were limited to a very small numbers of learners. What we can say with confidence is that there has been no compromise to the integrity of the 2020 combined exam as a whole.

—  Hugh Amoore, chair of the national investigations task team

“Those conclusions are, in brief, given that the spread of the leaked questions was done by WhatsApp, it is a fact that the full extent of the leaks may never be revealed. But based on available evidence at the moment, from investigating marking, statistical analysis and interviews, widespread leaks did not occur,” said Amoore.

He said the investigation into the leaked maths paper found 235 matric pupils were in WhatsApp chat groups where questions from the exam — or the full exam — were shared. In the case of the physical science paper, just 62 pupils were known to be in groups where the leaks were made.

“From this evidence, the leaks were limited to a very small numbers of learners,” he said. “What we can say with confidence is that there has been no compromise to the integrity of the 2020 combined exam as a whole. While the integrity of the two papers has been marred ... it has not been compromised overall.”

Umalusi still needs to weigh in and is expected to do so at a briefing this week.

But given the “thoroughness” of the investigation by Amoore and the task team, one can only hope it will have reached the same conclusion.

Officials need to do everything they can to ensure it doesn’t happen again and those responsible for the leaks need to be harshly punished. The law must take its course, swiftly.

However, for now at least, the horror of the past school year, especially for the matric class, should finally be laid to rest. Now, we await the release, in a week, of the matric results.