Question No. 136
Mr Smiles (Democratic Alliance) to ask Minister of Basic Education:
(1) (a) Of which (i) 10 subjects of the 2009 senior certificate examination were the marks increased and (ii) six subjects were the marks decrease, (b) by what margin were the respective subjects adjusted, (c) what are the primary reasons in each case and (d) what criteria was followed for each of the respective subjects;
(2) Whether any difficulties were experienced with regard to any of those 16 subjects which prohibited providing the matriculants of 2009 with results; if not, why not; if so, what measures;
(3) Whether there are any measures in place to avoid the incomplete and late release of matric results; if not, why not; if so, what measures?
Reply:
1. (a) It needs to be noted that the standardisation of marks, in terms of the General and Further Education and Training Quality Assurance Act, no 58 of 2001, is the responsibility of the Quality Assurance Council, Umalusi.
Therefore, if any additional information, to that which is provided in this response is required, it should be directed to the Quality Assurance Council. It also needs to be mentioned that standardisation of examination marks is an international practice necessary to take care of the variation in the standard of question papers and the variation in the standard of marking that may occur from year to year and across examining bodies.
(i) The 10 subjects for which marks were adjusted upwards are the following:
* English home language
* Sesotho home language
* Setswana home language
* Mathematics
* Mathematics paper three
* Accounting
* Economics
* Engineering Graphics and Design
* Physical Science
* Geography
(ii) The six subjects where the marks were decreased are the following:
* Afrikaans home language
* IsiNdebele home language
* Siswati home language
* Tshivenda home language
* Agricultural Management Practice
* Hospitality Studies
In the remaining 42 subjects the raw marks of the candidates were accepted.
(b) It is not possible to indicate the exact adjustments per subject, since these adjustments are scaled depending on the segment of the mark distribution that needs to be adjusted to bring the distribution of 2009 to be comparable to previous years. As a principle the adjustments cannot exceed 10 percent of the maximum marks in that subject. In most subjects the adjustments ranged between one and five percent.
(c) The primary reasons for the adjustment of the marks is that the question paper was either too difficult, and therefore marks are adjusted upwards or the question paper was less demanding than previous years, and therefore marks are adjusted downwards. This practice ensures that candidates writing the examination in 2009 are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged.
(d) The Quality Assurance Council determines norms for each subject which is based on the performance of learners over the last three to five years. The marks of the current examination are compared to the distribution of the previous history and adjustments are made based on sound statistical analysis, supported by qualitative data.
2. The standardisation of the examination marks was finalised on 30 December 2009 and these decisions were captured on the examination computer system on the evening of 30 December 2009, and all results were processed and released on 7 January 2010. The standardisation of results did not in any way contribute to grade 12 candidates not receiving their results.
3. Incomplete results will occur in every examination due to a number of reasons which include, inter alia, candidates being irregular in one or two papers, candidates not submitting their school based assessment marks, candidates not pitching to write a paper, etc. In the 2009 examination there was a very small number of outstanding marks which were due to the reasons listed above.
Issued by: Department of Basic Education
11 February 2010
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education/gov.za/)
