At a briefing on the state of readiness for the November 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) said it is fully prepared to administer the examinations based on the principles of fairness, reliability, validity and integrity.
Learners in Grade 12 across the country will commence the NSC exams on 31 October 2022 and will write their last examination on 7 December 2022.
The department said that the number of full-time enrolments increased from 733 198 in 2021 to 755 981 in 2022.
This increase is gradual compared to previous years but the increase of 22 783 candidates relieved the concern that there would have been a significant dropout of learners after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Learners who were part-time also increased from 163 965 in 2021 to 167 479 in 2022.
There are 6 912 examination centres around the country which will administer 193 question papers.
The department appointed 52 811 markers to mark these examination papers, this is an increase of 11 215 markers from 2021 and the department said the number of markers had to increase to keep with the increase in learner enrolments.
The DBE Director-General, Mathanzima Mweli stated that the department was aware of how load shedding would negatively impact the performance of learners who are writing NSC examinations.
"Difficult as it is the department has given guidelines on how to deal with this and appreciate the innovation and creativity employed by schools." said Mweli.
He said that load shedding would not only affect the writing of the examinations, but that it would also affect the learners' preparation for the exams and will add to their anxiety levels before they write.
The Grade 12 DBE senior management met with the senior management of Eskom on 14 October 2022 to outline the priority requirements of the Department in relations to the Grade 12 examinations.
Learners who wrote the Computer Applications Technology (CAT) and Information Technology (IT) on 25 and 26 October 2022 and faced disruption and could not attempt or complete their examinations due to load shedding will have an opportunity to rewrite on 7 December 2022.
In order to ensure that there are no irregularities during the examination period the learners sitting for the NSC examinations and their parents/guardians will sign a ‘Commitment Agreement’.
Through this agreement learners and parents are obliged to follow all the rules related to the examinations and alert the school or the department of any irregularities immediately.
