BASIC Education Minister Angie Motshekga has urged officials in her department and at provincial level to redouble their efforts to prevent examination paper leaks in the future and to pursue anyone culpable in these leaks, or the distribution of leaked papers.
Yesterday the minister announced that the leaked Maths 2 and Physical Science 2 exam papers will be rewritten. She added that the national rewrite would be the first of its kind in the country's history.
Motshekga announced that Maths 2 would be rewritten at 2pm on December 15, a day which had been pencilled in as the last day of a 30 day long examinations period, while the Physics 2 paper would be written at 9am on December 17.
Motshekga said that following a special meeting of the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) on Tuesday to consider the recommendations of the National Examinations Irregularities Committee, the National Investigation Task Team had been tasked to investigate the leakage of both papers.
“The CEM considered the preliminary report focusing on the extent of the leakage so that a recommendation can be made on the remedial action to be taken to address the compromise.
“Some of the key findings are that the viral spread of information on the cyber networks made it virtually impossible to accurately identify the number of learners that have had access to the leaked question papers,” said Motshekga.
She said that the decision to rewrite the two papers had not been easy but one which was necessary under the circumstances.
“We need to work hard to deal with the human factor in the examination system. It is clear that the people responsible for leaking the question papers are adults.
“CEM appreciates the work being done by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, the Hawks. We welcome the arrest that has been made and we hope more arrests will follow. We really the need to send a strong message that tampering with national examinations is a serious offence,” said Motshekga.