The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has had to strengthen its efforts to best accommodate and assist this year's group of matric learners as they prepare to embark on their final exams, which officially began on Monday, 31 October 2022.
Challenges such as the disruptive Covid-19 pandemic, and now more recently, the heavy periods of loadshedding, have added onto the pressures and stresses that generally come with the end-of-year exam season.
Recently, Parliamentary Committee Members raised concerns about loadshedding and the suspension in electricity supply, especially for technical subjects such as Computer Applications Technology (CAT) and Information Technology (IT), because candidates require computers to sit for their practical examinations.
The Education Department is confident that rolling blackouts will not pose a serious threat to the preparation- and writing of examinations around the country, assuring the Committee that it had established a close working relationship with Eskom to minimize loadshedding during the exam period.
If loadshedding were to occur at exam writing centres, the examination heads will be given clear guidelines on how to handle the situation.
Schools have also been advised to have a backup power supply. Alternatively, the learners can make use of the rewrite option.
However, the DBE recognizes that not all schools can afford generators as a backup power supply, and the Department also cannot afford to assist schools in this regard. Hence, schools have been advised to shift their exam times, although this solution presents the risk of learners becoming exposed to the paper.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga explained that the examination timetable was created to mitigate the impact of loadshedding. While the examination timetable slots have remained the same for several years, some exam papers may be written before or after the set times.
The risk of exam paper leaks has created a hyper-vigilance in the Department to prevent a repeat of the 2020's exam period. This year, the DBE has doubled down on security measures that will be put in place to ensure that leaks do not occur.
