The announcement by the Department of Basic Education that the June matric exams have been cancelled should be welcomed. From an educational perspective, it is more important to thoroughly cover the entire curriculum than to write more question papers.
Education has been severely disrupted for more than a year now. The Grade-11 year of this year's matriculants was already disrupted and the way that learners have to "take turns" to attend school is further restricting teaching and learning time.
In such times of crisis, there may be an initial impulse to rather focus on exam coaching than on ordinary education. This step, however, prevents that from happening.
The National Senior Certificate is of the utmost importance in South Africa seeing as its integrity is protected and maintained. Because the level of education varies significantly from school to school, the public is hesitant to trust the results of internal exams.
In contrast, the National Senior Certificate is externally and centrally examined.
It is this same inequality that forces the Department to ensure that matriculants are adequately prepared for what they should expect in the final exam. The June exam is managed by schools internally, but the question papers for key subjects are centrally provided. The question papers of the Preparatory Exam in September are externally compiled, but graded by the schools themselves.
The final exam dominates the formula used to calculate matriculants' final mark, but the other exams play an important role in preparing them for it. Thus, cancelling these exams is not something to be taken lightly.
As the FF Plus asserted last year, some schools did succeed in managing the lockdown restrictions in such a way that the disruption to education was minimal. These schools may even be able to let matriculants write exams in June this year. It is important that schools do whatever they can to help matriculants prepare for the final exam as best they can.
When looking at the bigger educational picture, it is still more important that schools, where education was severely disrupted, cover the entire learning plan than write one additional question paper. Thus, the FF Plus welcomes the decision as a suitable form of crisis management.
On the other hand, schools that have been able to cover the curriculum should not be prevented from letting their learners write this exam.
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