Today marks exactly four days before the start of the 2011 National Senior Certificate Examination. It is the culmination of nine months of grueling work for learners, teachers and officials of the KwaZulu Natal Department of Education. We are here to declare that this department is now ready to conduct the end-of-the year examinations in all grades, particularly the Grade12 class of 2011.
Registration of learners
KwaZulu-Natal has 127 044 full-time candidates for this very important examination. The process of registration of candidates and examination centres which started at the beginning of 2011 has now been completed. In addition to the number of full-time candidates, we are pleased to announce that 23 342 part-time repeater candidates are registered for this examination. This is but one of the ways to show that we do care even for those who did not make it in their previous examination sitting if they still want to improve their marks and increase their chance of accessing institutions of higher learning or other fields in their future careers. Of the 512 029 candidates nationally, KwaZulu Natal contributes just over a quarter of learners who will sit for their National Senior Certificate examination. This places a huge responsibility on our shoulders of ensuring that learners are thoroughly prepared and ready before this very important day arrives.
Security of the examination
The Department has a Security Advisory Directorate which together with other agencies has put in place an elaborate plan to secure the entire examination process.
The conduct of the examination
The examination will commence on 17 October 2011 and conclude on Friday 1 December 2011.There are papers for the morning sessions and for afternoon sessions. Morning papers will start at 9:00 and afternoon papers will start at 14:00 pm.
Invigilation
Invigilators will be trained in a cascading model. Provincial Examinations and Quality Assurance Chief Directorate will train all the District Examination Heads. The District Examination Heads will train all the Chief Invigilators. The Chief Invigilators will train the Assistant Invigilators.
The main focus of the training is “quality invigilation” and “prevention of irregularities”. The Provincial Examination and Assessment Directorate have conducted extensive workshops for district officials in preparation for the training of Chief Invigilators across the province to re-enforce the issue of monitoring, invigilation and prevention of irregularities.
All staff members who will be involved in the conduct of the examination will sign a confidentiality clause relating to all classified examination related to all information. The provincial examination staff members who have close relative (sons, daughters etc) writing the examination will not monitor in schools where their relatives write. They have been excused from participating in critical processes such as printing, proof-reading and packing of question papers.
Monitoring
The purpose of monitoring is to ensure that all learners in the province write a credible examination. The monitoring of examination will be a three-fold activity. The first part will be monitoring of the printing process by management of the Chief Directorate. The second part will be the monitoring of the delivery of question papers by the examination administration and assessment staff. The third one will be the monitoring of the conduct of the examination by district, province, National Department of Education and Umalusi. Monitoring activities will focus on nodal points, collection and submission points and mainly examination centers.
Marking of scripts
Approximately 9170 markers will be appointed to undertake the marking of scripts. 900 administrative assistants and 200 administrative officials will undertake the checking process and submission of the mark sheets to the data section for capture. The province has 29 marking centres. The administration staff and administration assistants will report for duty on 02 December 2011. Chief markers, Deputy and Senior Markers and markers will report on 05 December 2011. All marking centres have sufficient marking rooms with locking doors for the security of the answer scripts during the day and at night. Marking will commence on 06 December 2011 and conclude on 15 December 2011. Capturing will be concluded on 18 December 2011. The result will be released on the 5th of January 2012.
Dealing with irregularities
Where irregularities arise, they will be dealt with during the examination. Candidates whose results get blocked for whatever reason would receive letters informing them of reasons and necessary processes thereof. The provincial examination irregularities section will investigate all cases. The outcome of investigations would be presented to the Provincial Examinations Irregularity Committee.
The national committee would make final recommendation. Unblocking of results will be communicated to the candidates through their schools.
Learner readiness
Learner readiness is one of the most important parts of examination readiness. Besides generally expecting teaching and learning that took place since January, the province had additional programmes to support teaching and learner achievement. This was part of the provincial intervention plan. We have, throughout the year, conducted functionality visits at schools. Schools that scored below 60% in the 2010 NSC examinations wrote common tests in March and June. They also wrote preparatory examinations in September. Other schools used their own tests but obtained copies of common tests for revision. Results of common tests were analysed and feedback was given to schools, Ward Managers, Circuit Managers and Provincial staff for support and interventions.
Outcomes for 2011 academic year
The Department of Basic Education has given us the following targets for the current academic year:
- 35 518 Bachelor Passes for 2011
- 37 107 for Maths
- 22 711 for Physical Science
These are the expected outcomes for 2011 matric candidates and we are hopeful and determined that we will achieve these goals judging from the hard work put in by the teachers, learners and parents. We hope that the parents will be supportive enough to their children and allow them time to study. In addition, we are determined and hopeful that the 2011 Class of Matric will achieve beyond the expectation and surpass the 2010 pass percentage of 70,7.
We hope that all schools will create a healthy buzz around these examinations. Learners must be assisted both at home and at school. But we also want to say that we expect nothing less than good results from the Class of 2011.
Good Luck and congratulations for having come this far! The world is your oyster!
I thank you.
