The FF Plus shares in the joy of hundreds of thousands of matriculants as the Mathematics and Physical Sciences exams do not have to be re-written.
This follows after AfriForum made an application to the court on behalf of various individual matriculants.In his judgement, Judge N. Davis said that he had reviewed the Minister of Basic Education's decision and has consequently set it aside. According to the court order, the answer scripts of all the matriculants who are not implicated in the irregularities must be marked.
The premise is that people will only be brought to book if their guilt can be proven. An order as to costs was issued to the Minister.
The FF Plus expressed before that it appears as if the innocent parties are always the ones paying the highest penalty for crime. At that stage, the FF Plus expected that Umalusi's demand that the question papers must be re-written to protect the integrity of the exams would prevail. The party joins matriculants in rejoicing over the fact that this is not the case.
The judgement, however, does not solve the problem of the recent exams' compromised integrity. Seen in conjunction with the disruption of the lockdown, 2020 was definitely not the Year of the Matriculant. The FF Plus wants to reiterate its insistence on these two points: Security at the Department must be intensified; and schools must be given the opportunity to decide how they want matriculants to be examined, through the Department or through one of the independent exam boards.
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