The official examination quality assurance body has concluded its quality assurance processes for the 2024 Matric examinations. This comes just days before the Grade 12 class of 2024 will receive their final examination results.
Umalusi Council sets and monitors standards for general and further education and training in South Africa in accordance with the National Qualifications Framework Act No 67 of 2008 [as amended] and the General and Further Education and Training Quality Assurance Act No 58 of 2001 [as amended].
The Council is tasked with the development and management of a sub-framework of qualifications for general and further education and training and for the attendant quality assurance.
Umalusi is currently responsible for the certification of the following qualifications:
Schools:
- Senior Certificate amended (SCa) – continues as a revised qualification for adults
- National Senior Certificate (NSC)
TVET Colleges:
- National Technical Certificate (N3)
- National Certificate Vocational (NCV)
Adult Learning Centres:
- General Education and Training Certificate: Adults (GETC)
Umalusi Matric Results 2024Â
Quality Assurance Body Umalusi has approved the release of the 2024 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) will release the NSC results later this week.
Umalusi concluded that the examinations were administered in accordance with all required regulations. They found that irregularities were not systematic and did not compromise the integrity of the 2024 NSC examinations.
Results for all candidates found implicated in irregularities are recommended to be blocked. Further steps will be taken pending an investigation by the DBE and Umalusi.
A record number of grade 12 learners participated in the 2024 NSC examinations. The DBE revealed that 924,460 learners, both full-time and part-time candidates, participated in the 2024 final examinations
Standardisation
Standardisation is used to mitigate the effect of factors other than the learners’ knowledge, abilities and aptitude on the learners’ performance. Often, challenges experienced by learners and teachers will be taken into consideration along with other factors that may have impacted on the grade 12 examination results.
Once these considerations have been completed, the stakeholders will choose to adjust marks in subjects upwards and downwards.
Subjects Marks Accepted – 47 subjects (Accounting, English home language, Mathematical literacy, Physical Sciences)
Subjects Adjusted Upward – 16 subjects (History and mathematics)
Subjects Adjusted Downward – 3 (Economics and Geography)
Full details regarding adjustment of subjects will be released in due course.
The body acknowledged that the 2024 examinations faced several hindrances including load shedding, community protests and cheating by candidates. These pronouncements were made by the Executive Committee of Umalusi Council on Monday.
They believe the efforts made by stakeholders helped ensure the integrity of the examinations were upheld. They are pleased that the alternative arrangements were made to ensure learners are able to complete their examinations despite several hindrances.
Irregularities
Umalusi noted their concern that different forms of cheating were uncovered during the examinations. Candidates were found in possession of crib notes and cellphones. There were also imposters found in examination venues and the sharing of answers via social media messaging platforms. Some examination papers were also found to have different handwriting.
They said sanctions will be handed out to candidates. This included blocking the release of results for some candidates while other candidates will be banned from participating in one or two future examination cycles.
The body also noted its concern about problematic questions which provided candidates with incorrect and unclear instructions.
Problematic questions included questions incorrectly requiring learners to identify a topic in an incorrect paragraph. In a Mathematical Literacy paper 2, candidates were erroneously referred to the incorrect year (Unclear instructions) while a language paper contained an incorrect use of words.
This resulted in some marking concessions being made. Learners were marked out of a lower number of total marks (143) for a Mathematical literacy examination. This as the seven marks allocated to the question were removed.
The marks achieved by learners was then scaled to a total of 150 marks.
No learner is disadvantaged by errors in the question papers
The education department is on track to release the matric results for the class of 2024 on 19 January 2025. Matric candidates will receive their results a day later.