Cape Town - Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said the rape of five matric learners was receiving the necessary attention and the learners were being assisted with psycho-social support.
The rapes were among the more grave incidents related to learner safety that came to light during a media briefing on the 2024 National Senior Certificate Exams, at Parliament on Wednesday.
“It is our commitment to fostering a safe and supportive environment for all learners and so it is with an extremely heavy heart that I want to address the deeply distressing incident that occurred in Mqhekezweni (Eastern Cape).
“Five Grade 12 learners were subjected to horrific acts of violence, of rape, and I want to express my deepest sadness for what these young people have endured.
“Of course the matter is receiving priority, even at a Cabinet level, to ensure that the criminal justice system responds, and responds swiftly to this issue.”
When questioned over whether the incident occurred on the school grounds and whether a staff member was the perpetrator, Gwarube said the incident took place at a home near the school.
“These learners had moved to a common home so that they could be nearer to the school and then there was a robbery when this horrific incident happened.”
The 2024 NSC exams reaches its halfway mark this week after starting on October 21.
Speaking on other incidents reported during the examination period so far, Gwarube said one learner was unable to finish their paper as they were arrested inside the exam venue, as a suspect in an armed robbery case.
Gwarube said cellphones and crib notes were found and confiscated from a small number of learners and are being investigated.
Two imposter candidates were detected and arrested for attempting to take an exam.
Responding to the recent food poisoning incidents involving children, Gwarube said the department was working with the Department of Health to develop safety guidelines for schools on how to best mitigate the risks of organophosphate pesticides entering school environments.
Gwarube said she was also exploring potential legal avenues within a basic education context to ban these pesticides and insecticides from entering schools.
DBE director of examinations, Priscilla Ogunbanjo, said: “In every large-scale public examination, definitely there will be incidents but the important thing is that you have systems in place to deal with those and we do have those protocols…
“In all, we would say that most of the examinations have gone smoothly with very few administrative errors and also extremely few behavioural offences or acts of dishonesty from our learners.”
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za