JONATHAN JANSEN | Institutional egos clashing over matric results drives me bananas

Until a few weeks ago, I thought that the stupidest thing that happened in 2024 was a cryptocurrency entrepreneur buying a banana at a Sotheby’s auction for $6.2-million.

I laughed so hard when first reading the story that I thought the purchase was made in Zim dollars. But no, all of R116,651,140 for a bloody piesang duct-taped to a wall. Conceptual art, the media called it, with a straight face. The buyer then ate the banana and assured us it tasted better than other bananas.

There was competition for stupid right here at home when on November 18 2024, an unknown entity called The Information Regulator issued an Enforcement Notice against the department of basic education (DBE) when it got wind that it planned to publish the results of last year’s matric class in the newspapers — as has been done for generations.

The plan apparently contravenes sections of the Protection of Private Information (Popia) Act which guarantees privacy of information. When the DBE did not respond by indicating compliance with the first notice “within 31 days,” the Regulator issued an infringement notice and slapped the department with a R5-million fine.

All kinds of back and forth ensued. The department promised to only publish student examination numbers and results. The Regulator’s response had me reaching for a whole bunch of bananas. Since the exam numbers of the students appear in sequence, a student with number ending 678, for example, would know who was 677 or 679 and therefore there is not complete anonymisation. Seriously. What exactly is going on here? Simple. Institutional egos. Ever heard of the Information Regulator? Of course not.

There is, furthermore, a distasteful form of paternalism at work here. The state decides what you may or may not know. You cannot handle bad news, so we will do it for you.

Here is their opportunity to make a name for themselves on the pretence of protecting the privacy of matric learners. And when the department, joined by other actors like AfriForum, ignored the authority and later threatened court action, the Regulator’s ego was bruised leading to this ridiculous standoff with a R5-million fine to boot. That is taxpayer’s money, by the way, that could pay the salaries of a whole lot of teachers who are about to lose their jobs.

Inside a cupboard in my study is a box with the newspaper announcement of my matric results from a few decades ago. I remember the thrill, the utter delight, to see not only my name but a star-sign indicating a first class pass that I had worked so hard to achieve. All my friends and family saw my name in the newspaper and there was much to celebrate in a cramped council house in the dour setting of the Cape Flats. But what about those whose names do not appear? It’s called life. Most pass, some fail. You get a job, you don’t. You love someone, she tells you to jump in a lake. Life. Whether or not your name is in the newspaper, you and others around you will soon know who made it and who did not.

The Regulator is acting here like textual fundamentalists such as the Taliban or right-wing evangelicals. Take the literal text of Popia and do not allow for interpretation. Impose multimillion rand fines unless the department bows to your will. Surely the Regulator knows that nobody in their right mind is going to memorise the sequence of complex examination numbers around them, and with that information embarrass their fellow learners; damn, the students I work with hardly remember their own exam numbers! This kind of reasoning is preposterous and insults the intelligence of the public.

There is, furthermore, a distasteful form of paternalism at work here. The state decides what you may or may not know. You cannot handle bad news, so we will do it for you. I suspect that one of the problems here is a Regulator led and guided by lawyers and so their interpretation of the act tends to be narrowly legalistic.

I am quite sure there are no anthropologists or sociologists in those deliberations who ask questions like what is in the best interests of the community or how can published results raise the motivation levels of youthful learners? For decades, publishing the names of hardworking students who passed proceeded without consequence. But, asked an excitable interviewer on one of our TV stations, will knowledge of failure that comes with your name being absent in a national newspaper list not lead to suicide among some students? Seriously. Suicide is an extremely serious issue and of course every effort should be made to protect the vulnerable.

However, it really insults our students to suggest that anonymised published results that appear in newspapers will lead to such catastrophic outcomes. The DBE should go ahead and publish the results of all 882,336 candidates and keep challenging the regulator in the courts lest it makes of us a banana republic.

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